*thwack*

That sound, my dear bloggy friends, was the other shoe dropping.

I've been waiting all week for it to happen and last night it did.

For some reason, LM seemed to be all big kid grown-up baby last week and from Monday THRU Friday night, he slept through the night. Oh yes....let's pause and read that closely----he slept all night long for five nights in a row. Monday thru Thursday was 8/830-6am and Friday night he went down around 830 and got up at 9am (super sleeping-in baby!). It is more sleep than I've had at night (consistently) since probably January. I feel a little bit more human!

Every night I went to bed telling myself that he was going to wake up and not to expect a full night's sleep. I'd think about some variable in his day that was "off" and I wouldn't let myself get my hopes up. But--every night, I woke to my alarm instead of LM. I was starting to get freaked out :-)

But, last night, the other shoe dropped. Right on schedule (around 4), LM was up and unhappy. A quick snuggle and 4oz of formula later, he was down again (only to wake up at 630 wide awake with soaking wet pjs--but that's another story).

I, being crazy, immediately began analyzing what differences occurred yesterday that probably came into play. My guess---it was sleeping in 3 extra hours, taking naps in the car (granted they were 2 and 1 hour respectively) and not getting in all of his normal solids amount.

I'm superstitious and I totally attribute him STTN all week to the fact that all week at daycare he napped really really well, had all of his bottles and his jar of solids a day. That let me get his dinner and bedtime bottle fed to him in good time and not too close together. And it worked.

Well, that doesn't work on the weekend. Even though he did get most of his formula in (he left about 3oz in his bedtime bottle--which he did one night last week too so it shouldn't be that big of a deal) and did take naps, he only had maybe 1/2 of a jar of food. I don't know if that really has to do anything with it--it could totally be in my head. OR, if it's just the fact that he's at home and with us. I wish I knew. I don't though.

What I do know now is that he is capable of STTN for multiple nights in a row. When he slept for 13hours Friday night, it taught me that assuming I feel like he got enough food in during the day, he really probably doesn't even need the full 4oz when he wakes up. I *think* that over our fall vacation coming up this week, we may drop down to 2 or just snuggles.

I know now that he can do it and what I need to figure out is what really makes the biggest difference. Are we at the point where we need to focus our efforts on sleep training (and by that, I mean teaching him to go back to sleep when he wakes instead of thinking he HAS to eat)? Or do I need to figure out if I should focus on making sure he definitely gets enough solids during the weekend? Maybe I should have given him some baby food at dinnertime instead of going straight for the bottle. I suppose I could've offered if after the baby food and let him take what he wanted.

I wish it was easier to know what affects things. I wish it were as simple as knowing it was teething or a cold that wakes him up. Or whether he was really hungry when he wakes up. There are so many variables....it certainly gives my OCD a workout.

But for now, I'm just going to savor my LM being a big boy and giving me some sleep this week--when I really really needed it to survive a bad work week.

That and try to figure out how to get him to do it again!