Yes, you can sleep on my pillow.

The sleeping turmoil with the baby continues. Last week we got two really good nights of sleep out of her, on Friday and Saturday nights. Friday I rocked her for half an eternity, then put her down in the pack-n-play in my bedroom. As I watched her sleeping for a minute, the thought came to me, put her in her own bed. I brushed it off; she didn't look like she was sleeping deeply enough to be moved to her room. Even if she did make it to her bed, she'd wake up the moment I put her down in the crib. Plus she wouldn't stay asleep in her own bed.

But again the thought came to me, put her in her crib tonight. Move her right now. Sigh. The feeling was pretty strong. So I transferred her to her own room, to her crib, and she actually continued to sleep. In fact, she slept for three hours. I got her up to feed her then went to bed myself, and she slept for another six hours straight. Whoa. Even I can't sleep that long anymore -- I got up twice and went to check on her. Apparently her dad was also up a time or two. After waking up and nursing at 4am, she went back to sleep for another three hours. Amazing.

The next night, similar story.

But then it was Sunday night, and her nap schedule was weird during the day because of church, and she didn't sleep well that night. Or Monday night. On Tuesday a runny nose popped up, so Tuesday night was miserable. Poor baby was full of phlegm, which would gradually build up until it suffocated her a little bit, which would cause her to wake up. The abrupt waking and difficulty breathing made her scream, which woke us immediately and propelled us out of bed. Once or twice I rocked her while she screamed for awhile (which is entirely uncharacteristic of my kid). All told, it was a night of very little sleep.

Wednesday she was still sickly (I don't know if it's a cold or if it's from teething; cold be either or both). Baby Girl is at the point now where she rolls a lot in her sleep and often ends up on her face, so I can't prop her up on a pillow. My wise MIL advised me to put a couple of pillows under her mattress so that the whole mattress is angled. Brilliant idea, but unfortunately Darling was just too sick for it to fully work.

When she woke up in the middle of the night on Wednesday, I just brought her to my bed and propped her up on my arm. But she made my arm cramp and fall asleep. So I ended up putting her little head on my pillow, next to my own head; her little face pressed up against my face. As you can probably imagine, it was very sweet. It was nice being able to kiss and nuzzle her. It was still difficult to sleep, though. I was worried about her rolling off of my pillow, getting smothered, being crushed, etc. She's probably safer when she's up on my pillow than when she's at my side, but still, I worried.

Last night (Thursday), same story. Except much less sleep. There was a very long period of crying during the  4 o'clock hour. Eventually dad took Baby Girl to the nursery and rocked her for awhile; she slept in his arms but awoke when transferred to the crib. So she came back to bed, screamed a little bit more, and slept on my pillow again.

Right now she's asleep in the pack-n-play. She's been up twice since we put her down at 7pm. The first time she was rocked back to sleep by her dad, the second time I cuddled her in our bed while I did some reading. She sounds okay over there -- doesn't sound too congested. She's been in the pack-n-play for about an hour. I'm really hoping she will give me one of those glorious 6-hour stretches and then another 2-3 hour stretch tonight. I could really use the sleep!

Hopefully I'll have better news tomorrow. (Hopefully I'll have time to write tomorrow!)