New strategy

Here we go again: tonight resembles last night.

What's up with the baby girl? Why is she still awake at 12:15 a.m.? And why is she awake and chewing on a toy rolling pin in the play kitchen?

Tonight we started trying to put Laurel down at 7:30 p.m., an hour earlier than usual, based on the theory that she was having trouble sleeping because she was overtired. Well, she did start yawning around 7:00, so it seemed like a plausible idea. But the only result was that we ended up trying to put her down for three hours, a significant portion of the day.

So at 10:45 p.m., an hour and a half ago, I decided to forget about trying. I was tired of sitting in a darkened bedroom trying to hold or rock or nurse a writhing, complaining, wakeful, ungrateful baby. So I brought her out of her room and told Craig that I had a new strategy: I was going to sit with her in the living room until (1) she fell asleep on the floor, or (2) she became so fussy that I knew she would welcome sleep.

So far neither of these things have happened. She has been happily playing by herself for the entire hour and a half. She's actually having the best time she's had all day. She will probably outlast me; when Craig comes in at dawn he will find me asleep on the couch and Laurel still playing merrily.

She's not completely merry, to be fair. She has been crying whenever she takes a little fall or bumps her head, something she doesn't do when she's well-rested, and some of her enthusiasm is probably exaggerated by exhaustion. She's all amped up on adrenaline.

She has always liked to stay up late and get up late. Tonight is outrageous, though, and is turning out to be like the old days when she was two or three months old. Back then she wasn't ready to go to bed until midnight or 1:00 a.m., so until then I just hung out with her. Like tonight.

I'm not planning to make this new strategy a permanent routine.