Sleep - How it all happened

The popular saying 'sleeping like babies' is extremely misleading as not many babies that I know of sleep for 20 hours a day. At least, Aditi was not so. She slept for probably 10 hours out of 24 and the rest was spent either feeding or crying. During the first 4 weeks, my mom and I had many sleepless nights not knowing what would put this baby to sleep. And she would not sleep until midnight which made us even more tired. We would be terrified when the clock struck 9pm.The drama - as we called it would begin by 9pm and go on until midnight, when she would finally be rocked to sleep. In those early days, moving her from my lap after a feed to the bed would result in lots of crying and I would have to feed her in lying positions for as long as 40 minutes to put her to sleep. In short, it was tiring and not so much fun.
Sometime around the sixth week, I was introduced to mommy blogging. I was happy for 2 reasons - to take my mind off feeding Aditi and learning that most mommies had similar problems that I faced. The solution to the sleep issue came in the form of Tharini's 'A Tale of two sleepers'. As I read the entire post, I was thrilled to find that sleep training was possible even when the baby was as young as 2 months old. We started playing a classic CD on Ganesha hymns. We had to break the 'rocking to sleep' habit and to get Aditi to sleep in her crib. She was co-sleeping until about 2 months. I was told of CIO, but was not in favor of letting my little baby cry so long and tire herself although I knew that it worked well for a few other friends.
The musical mobile fascinated her and it was constantly played during the day. Wished we had a remote controlled one so we did not have to wind it up every 6 minutes. Thanks to my father who would play the mobile on and on endless number of times until Aditi fell asleep. At night, the musical mobile proved a distraction, so had to be removed before Aditi could sleep. I would leave Aditi in her crib, play the CD, sleep beside her on the bed and keep patting her until she fell asleep. It wasn't easy in the beginning, but I am thankful to many bloggers who guided me to teach Aditi to sleep.
When she was about 2 weeks old, amidst lots of protests, we bought a pacifier. My mom wasn't particularly inclined to give Aditi the paci as she found it terribly difficult to break my habit. It seemed that I would never give it up and would ask for the 'va-va' all the time until about a year. Aditi used the va-va to sleep until about 5 months and then stopped using it on her own. When I gave her the va-va, all she did was play with it and throw it after a little while. Instead she took another approach to sleep.
Come month 4 and Aditi started sleeping on her side. She chose her right side and placed her leg on the pillow beside her. As soon as the CD played, she would be asleep is less than 5 minutes. Oh and what a change was that to the endless rocking that happenend a few months ago. I was happy mother and started enjoying mommyhood. She would nap about 5 times a day - 30 minute sessions, and I chose to work around her nap times.
Around month 6, there were more changes to the sleep patterns. She started sucking her thumb! If she was sleepy, she would suck her thumb and all I had to do was put her in the bed and play the CD. She would sleep off in a few minutes. She had 2 well defined naps of about an hour in the morning and an hour and half in the afternoon.
The sleep technique came in handy on our trip to India. She would sleep off in a jiffy, but the trouble was the sound of two wheelers and constant honking on the road outside. India trip brought its own sleep problems. As she did not sleep in her crib for 6 weeks, she insisted on co-sleeping after we returned. And we would wake up all cramped every morning. Yet another habit to break....I strated to put her on our bed to sleep and place her in the crib as soon as she was asleep. This worked well and sometimes she wakes up at 4am demanding to sleep with us. And we sleep happily not having to share the bed with our baby.
Mommyhood does teach us lots of patience, but I also learnt to persevere and be steadfast in whatever I chose to teach my little girl.

First Steps

Aditi could stand up with support over the last few weeks. She would use anything for support - coffee table, dining chair, sofa, her highchair, bed frame, the handle on a chest of drawers or kitchen cabinet, bookshelf, dustbin and not to forget mama's or papa's pants. She would stand for a little while and call for help - to sit down. Initially, she would carefully place one hand on the floor,while the other held on to the support and lower herself carefully onto the carpet. But she quickly learnt it was easier to ask someone to lower her down than try and hurt her bottom - which she did quite often. Early mornings she would stand up and rock her cot to catch our attention.

Not being happy with just standing and watching the world, Aditi made an effort to start walking with support. Now thats her favorite passtime. She would strat from one end of the sofa and move to the other end, lower herself and start it all over again. But she does only in one direction onto her left - as she did with turning over and thumb sucking.She favors the left side for some reason whatsoever.

As for mobility sans support, she favors the tummy dragging/crawling technique. She starts to crawl about 3-4 steps and then goes back on her tummy, although shes been doing more of the crawling lately. Her speed has increased tremoundously. Now she gives us a 'Catch-me-if-you-can' look while she tries to find her way from one room to another.She loves to play peek-a-boo with her pappa.

As her nap times during the day gradually decreases, Its become ever more important for me to have a watchful eye over her actions all day.