SLEEP!!

I think everyone we know has heard us express our frustration about our precious baby boy not sleeping through the night (or even longer than 4 hours).
I am SOOOOOO HAPPY to report that Elijah has slept for 8 hours straight for the past 10 nights!! He's been going down at 8pm and will sleep until 4 or 4:30am and wakes up starving so I give him a bottle which he sucks down in about 5 minutes, then he goes back to sleep until 6:30 or if I'm really lucky, after 7am! We are so excited, It's amazing how much better one feels with a full nights sleep! I really haven't had a full nights sleep since the beginning of 2009 ... once I was pregnant with Elijah, I stopped sleeping through the whole night, any little thing would wake me. I would have to pee or I could hear EVERYTHING ... every car driving down the street or Karina snoring or Corey breathing or an ant walking across the backyard, I was now the lightest sleeper ever!! I was so desperate for a decent night of sleep that I was willing to try anything: we tried the cry it out method but the boy can cry for days and he pretty much wakes the whole neighborhood, I'm surprised no one called CPS on me ... we have a sound machine in his room to muffle any noises that could possibly wake him, if that's not on then the air purifier is on to keep the room cool as it hums softly ... No more night light. But I think the main thing that has been helping is that we have kept ourselves on "lockdown" for the past few weeks ... we haven't really been going out in the evenings. We let him get his last burst of energy out about 7:30 which consists of him crawling all over Daddy or Sissie while laughing and screaming hysterically which pretty much wipes him out, then I take him to his crib and he's ready to go down without a fight. Normally we have so many things going on that would keep us out in the evenings which would often result in Elijah falling asleep in the car on the way home and then we would have to transfer him to his crib and then our long night of soothing him back to sleep would begin.
Karina always just went with the flow, if she fell asleep in the car, we could take her out, carry her to her room, put her jammies on her and put her to bed all without her waking up ... soooo not the case with Elijah! We now know what we have to do: let him play until he's exhausted and put him down before he can get beyond tired and fight me. Sounds fun doesn't it!! 

Oh and we no longer make fun of those parents that insist on having their kids in bed by a certain time ... we get it now!!