Sleep, Baby, Sleep

It's Friday night at 10pm, and I'm sitting in bed with the sweetest little baby in the whole world asleep in her cradle next to me.
Grace turned 6 weeks old today, and I feel that it's finally safe to say we have a sleep routine going.  She is sleeping through the night (Besides waking up every 3-4 hours for night time feeds).  Does that still count as sleeping through the night?
It took me so long to figure out her sleep needs.  It took her so long to realize that day time is for shorter sleeps and night time is for longer sleeps.

A few items I needed to learn in order to get to this point:

- She shouldn't be awake for more than 2 hours at a time yet.  I thought that keeping her up for four hours would help her sleep more later.  In fact, keeping her up so long was working against me!  It was making her OVER tired and much harder to calm down and put to sleep.  Now that I realize this, I am vigilant about not letting her get over-tired.  I am swaddling her up and putting her down every 1-2 hours.  Even if she just sleeps for 20 minutes, it is worth it because she needs it.  (Although I do love those 2 hour naps, where I can do some laundry and even catch a quick nap myself).

Never underestimate the swaddle!

- Swaddling is vital!  I learned how to swaddle in the hospital.  I bought some of the special swaddle blankets, and tried it out for a few days at home.  Then, I told myself, "Grace likes to bat her arms around, she likes to kick her legs, she doesn't want to be swaddled."  So, I stopped swaddling, it was a hassle. The lack of swaddling caused me to have a lack of sleep for several weeks straight.  She would doze off while nursing, I would gently set her down, and then "whack", she would hit herself in the face, and wake up crying.
My worry now is how am I ever going to stop swaddling her?  It lets her sleep for 3-4 hours straight.

- Use the swing! Brian's sister Colleen gave us some baby gear, and some of it I just set to the side.  Her baby swing was one of those items.  I was crazy! The swing is amazing and so helpful. It can lull Grace to sleep (as long as it's dark and we have white noise going).

- Humidifier is amazing.  Not only does it keep the air from getting too dry, but it also provides a loud, steady white noise for Grace to fall asleep to.

Now that I am able to get some sleep at night, I honestly feel like a different person.

I do have a few worries though.  I can't swaddle her forever.  She can't sleep in the swing forever.  But for now, I'm enjoying this while it lasts.