After months of interrupted sleep, my husband and I were longing to having full REM cycles, dreams, and several hours of slumber.  Our baby is nearly eight months old.  Shouldn’t she be sleeping through the night by now?  Never mind that our son didn’t snooze a full night until he was nine months old.  Never mind that our parenting peers were having the same problem.  We were determined to find out how we could possibly get her to let us rest.

First we tried the food.  We loaded her up with pumpkin and pears right before bed, resolute in our determination to slumber.  Her response?  She woke up three times that night with diapers encrusted with orange-tinged poo.  Ugh.

Then we tried a different meal schedule and longer spans between her feedings during the day.  Our wise pediatrician reminded us that if she couldn’t last more than three hours during the day, how could she make it through the night?

baby wake ups at nightRight!  We tried the new routine with some success but Jovi was still up every night at exactly 1am.  Why was she so precise?

We tried warmer pajamas, a fan for background noise, a slightly later bedtime… All of it in vain.  At 1am on the dot we were greeted by her desperate screams. Every. Single. Night.

Until last night.  My husband was up late and went in to watch her sleep before he hit the sack.  It was 12:55 and as he watched her snooze in perfect slumber, he heard a sudden loud beeping.  Yes.  The travel alarm clock we keep in her room has been set to go off at 1am for months.  It only beeps five times so it was never going off when we went in to get her.

Our poor, pumpkin stuffed babe!  We’ll see how it goes tonight…