Bedtime routine = Success (and a worried mommy!)

So I know eventually we will want to establish a bedtime routine with Hailey so she can get into a regular sleep pattern. So I decided to try a sample routine on Friday night to see how she would do with it: bath, story, bottle, then bed.

So around 8:30 p.m. Hailey was about half-awake so we decided it was bathtime. We put her cute pink bathtub in the kitchen sink and stripped her down, that woke her up! She's not quite sure about baths yet. She starts out not too happy, but by the time I'm massaging her head with shampoo she's pretty content. We took her out of the bath, dried her off, then I massaged some lotion into her little legs and arms. The bath soap and lotion are both "calming baby" products that are supposed to help them relax for bedtime. Would it work?

After putting on her new cozy Pooh jammies, I curled Hailey up in my arms and headed off to her peaceful nursery and settled into our comfy glider with the classic book, "Guess How Much I Love You." I can't say she really paid too much attention, but I read her the whole book and ended with "Just like the Big Nutbrown Hare, Mommy loves Hailey all the way to the moon and back!" By this point she was very relaxed and basically passed out, so she and I cuddled for a little while since I knew she would wake up hungry before too long.

Around 9:30 (almost like clockwork, 4 hours after she last ate), she woke up starving, so I handed her off to Anthony to feed. After she ate I cuddled her on my chest and rubbed her back, our normal routine to get her settled down for bed. She got the sleepy look in her eyes, so I put her down to bed and decided it was time for mommy to go to bed too because I was pretty tired and wanted to catch a few hours sleep before she woke up again.

So around 3 a.m. I woke up a little panicked, why hadn't Hailey woken up yet? I of course leapt out of bed to make sure she was still breathing! Yep, still breathing AND still asleep! How was she not starving? Well I knew eventually she would wake up from being hungry, so I got back in bed and waited. And waited. Finally at 4 a.m. she made a little peep and I again jumped out of bed and scooped her up. I couldn't believe she had slept over 6 hours!

As I was changing her diaper, daddy stumbled in and blearily asked, "Did she already get up once?" I said, "Nope, she slept for 6 hours!" Though half-asleep, he said "Good baby!" gave her a kiss and stumbled back to bed.

Now here I am at 4:30 in the morning wide awake (Hailey is back in bed after getting a full belly), I got over 5 hours straight of sleep; I'm awake and ready to take on the day! Haha, well I suppose I should try and get a few more hours of sleep while I can, but couldn't wait to write about our successful bedtime routine. Good night!