Good night!

The last time I wrote about sleep, about a month ago, I was in a state of despair.

I'm here to say that happy days (or, rather, nights) are here again! How happy? Take a look at this sleep chart from Isaac's Trixie Tracker site. The dark blue dots show Isaac's daily sleep average on a week-by-week basis (ignore the data in light blue).

Historically Isaac has slept about 12 hours out of every 24, so many of the weeks on this chart show a daily sleep average that is abnormally low. But the lowest spot on this graph, week 100, represents a record low -- a daily average of ten hours and 20 minutes. (That week began July 31, immediately after we returned home from our trip to Minnesota. My despairing post was written during the following week, week 101, which began August 7.)

But here we are now in week 105 with a daily sleep average of 12 hours! Judging by the graph, you might assume that Isaac's sleep has finally returned to normal. But even though he's sleeping the normal amount -- ten hour nights and two hour naps -- his sleep itself isn't "normal." It's better than normal!

For the last nine nights Isaac has fallen asleep by himself in his own bed after I left the room. After I left the room, I say! After!

When he stopped nursing to sleep about five months ago, he wanted me to stay in his room and wait for him to fall asleep. Eventually he learned how to fall asleep fairly quickly, and I only had to sit there for ten minutes or so. But about a month ago he started having a lot of trouble falling asleep. He would get out of bed, ask me to sing, or ask to be rocked. Often when he finally fell asleep, he'd wake up before I even left the room. It was frustrating for both of us.

On September 4, after singing to him for nearly half an hour, I thought he was soundly asleep. But when I got up to leave the room, he woke up and cried out. I needed a break, so I told him I was going to get a glass of water, but that I would come right back. Can you guess what happened? Yep, he fell asleep as soon as I left the room. I couldn't believe it. I tried the drink of water ruse the next night, with a similar result -- I heard him mumble happily to himself through the baby monitor for ten minutes, then he fell asleep.

The third night I didn't tell him I was "coming right back," since I felt bad about deceiving him, and although I wondered if it would bother him to be left alone, in fact he fell asleep even sooner. By now he has fallen asleep alone for nine nights in a row, and I feel as shocked and thrilled as I did when he first began sleeping through the night -- like some kind of minor miracle has occurred. Isaac is thrilled, too, I think, judging by his mood and behavior -- he's even more good-natured than usual.

I guess that my staying in his room as he tried to fall asleep had finally become a distraction to him rather than a reassurance. This is good preparation for his teen years, when I will again become an annoyance rather than a comfort.

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Edited to add: It occurs to me that if Isaac only slept an average of 12 hours out of a 24 hour period one week in an 11-week period, then it's not "normal." I'm deluding myself mathematically if I assume otherwise. Most of this weekly sleep chart isn't abnormally low -- it's this past week that has been abnormally high. So not only have his sleep habits radically improved this week, so has his amount of sleep.