Operation Sleep: The Tenth (and Final) Night

Well, we made it -- all ten days and I'm only suffering from a modest amount of sleep deprivation. Although we're night quite there yet, we've made a lot of progress over the last week and a half and I think another couple of days will put us at that finish line. Last night was actually (by our standards) a huge sleeping success. Molly went to bed at 6:30 p.m. and slept straight through until 1 a.m. (I can't remember the last time that happened). After she woke up, she fussed on and off for the next hour -- I was still downstairs on the couch and didn't go up to get her, since she was only half-heartedly complaining and not really upset. She fell back to sleep around 2 a.m. and slept until 4 a.m. I decided that 4 a.m. was close enough to 5 a.m. for a girl who hadn't nursed in 10 hours, so Molly had her morning milk and went back to sleep (in her own bed) until a very respectable 6:30 a.m. Hooray! Hopefully a few more days will do the trick -- Dr. Gordon seems to agree, because here are his "after" instructions:

After these first ten nights, continue to cuddle and feed to sleep if you like and she wants to, but do nothing when she wakes up except to touch a little and talk to her briefly. This may continue for another three or four nights but occasionally keeps going for another week or more. Then . . . it stops. She has learned that she is just as well-loved, gets virtually everything she needs and wants all day, but must give seven hours per night back to her parents and family.

Gee, now that Operation Sleep has come to a close, what the heck am I going to blog about? Hey, guess what we had for dinner tonight ... ;)