like taking candy from a baby

Plava, she's had some trouble sleeping at night. It's been over 3 months now that she hasn't slept for more than 4 hours at a time. And let me tell you, 4 hours is a great length for her. But recently, namely in the last 3 days, she's been improving. We took some advice we've heard here and there and decided to make a bedtime routine: bath, book, bottle, bed. We had only done it for a couple nights when she suddenly had a better sleep. She was only up 2 times in the night as opposed to the usual 5+. So we continued, and the next night she did it again. Halleluja!!! We were getting excited, though not too excited because you really never know what the next night will be like. So the third night we put her to bed, and she was up....wait for it...ONCE ONLY. It was heaven. I felt like I had such a good sleep! We thought that things must be changing for the better! This must be the beginning of the end of those sleepless nights when we hand her back and forth between us because we're so frustrated at this wide eyed baby who just won't go back to sleep! We envisioned nights full of deep slumber, awaking the next morning rested and rejuvinated, bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready for the day! Then last night happened. We took her swimming in the late afternoon, which was pretty fun, and then got home a little later than normal so her routine was pushed ahead, oh, about half an hour. She was clearly tired though, and cried most of the way home from the pool. We did her little routine and put her into bed, and all seemed well. Then it started. First she woke up at 1:30, then at 2:00, then at 2:30, then at 3:00. By the last wake up I was muffling naughty words under my breath as I got out of bed. WHY? WHY COULDN'T SHE JUST SLEEP???

Anyway, I have decided what the problem was. As our friend Katie recently said, sometimes you just have to make up a reason so that you can have some sanity. So here's my reason. We took her swimming and that tired her out and threw her for a bit of a loop. We got her going on her routine rather late which threw her too. Then, and this is the best part, she's probably feeling some teething pain which is why she wouldn't go back to sleep. It MUST have kept waking her up. Yes, that's why she didn't sleep well. Sigh.

There. I feel better.