There are some things in this world that you can predict. The sun will rise, (although somedays are cloudy) the Philadelphia sports teams will break your heart (especially if their name starts with an 'F' and ends with a 'lyers') and Ellie will sleep through the night. Wait! Hold that last one. It turns out that just when you get comfortable with something, just when you can count on it, everything changes. This is a VERY important lesson about being a parent, so I will repeat it; just when you’re sure something will occur, it changes.
As loyal readers of this blog will already know, we have been blessed with a sleeper. Since around week 12 Ellie has been sleeping consistently EVERY NIGHT for nine to ten hours (when we moved her into her own room). While I understand that this pattern has only been going on for four weeks, and that doesn’t sound like a long time, I will put it in perspective for you. That is 25% of the time that Ellie has been alive, that’s like 7.5 of my adult years or 23.5 in Mel Wolfe years. (Sorry about that Pop.)
So for almost 23.5 years Ellie has been sleeping through the night. And then POW! While I was in California for our friends Meredith and Ryan’s wedding, Meredith put Ellie down for the night, confident she would sleep the night through as usual and around 12:30 Ellie wakes with ferocious hunger. Meredith thought that this was a simple one-time hiccup. Unfortunately, our little sleeper proceeded to wake up every four hours each night, right on through Sunday. On Monday night, we thought clearly this wasn’t just missing Daddy, this was something more – things had changed. Finally, on Tuesday night, we had decided that it must be that she had gotten used to bottles at daycare and now wasn’t adept enough at extracting the milk from Meredith and therefore was going to bed hungry. We crossed our fingers and I gave her formula and… it worked! Not only did she finally agree to take formula (sleepy haze maybe?) she also slept through the night again and the next morning she was her happy smiley self. Except that she wasn’t. She was sad and fussy and wouldn’t even hold my hand on the bus on the way to daycare. She proceeded to become rather constipated and stayed fussy throughout the day. Wednesday and Thursday were like mirror images of each other – formula right before bed, sleep through the night and bad day for Ellie.
Meredith and I quickly decided that this wasn’t worth it. I mean we love sleep, but not at the expense of our little girl's happiness. It was just like the days when Meredith was still enjoying milk, cheese and soy. Ellie was Ms. fussing cranky-pants. So, we said forget it on Thursday night, and decided not to give her any formula, dreading the sleepless night that would surely follow. I know what you’re thinking; “Meredith and Marty are so benevolent, so sacrificing for their child, surely she will sleep for them now.” (See how parenthood changes you from selfish to selfless?) Well, our selflessness paid off. She slept like a champ! Right through the night! Do we understand it? No. Do we care? No. Was it the formula? Who cares. It got her back on track and we are all happy again. In fact, despite a very busy weekend - we went down to Maryland on Friday night for our friends Michael and Dawn’s wedding on Saturday - our sweet little girl slept like a rock.
At Oma and Opa’s house, we carried our sleeping angel in her carseat, set up the pack-n-play and waited for her to wake up – at which time, we (Meredith) would feed her and put her down for the night. That morning, we went into the room she was sleeping in and had to wake her up! In the carseat! Where she had slept for ten hours! On the drive back home, she once again fell asleep (at 8:38 PM)– and as one should never wake a sleeping baby, we put her in the nursery still in the carseat and once again she was awakened by her sweet mother. At 8:28 AM!!!! 12 hours a new world’s record…for Ellie anyway. We'll see how tonight goes. I think we will be apprehensive for a while. We still love sleep, all sacrificing aside. The only constant is change and our family motto since we first got pregnant has been: Be Flexible.
Note about the wedding: It was Ellie’s first and apologies to the beautiful Bride who looked amazing, but we feel very bad that approximately half of her wedding photos will be of various guests holding, talking and making faces at the cutest little girl there. Ellie was awake for far too many hours, stimulated by so many new faces, sounds and smells. She was a total champ – sweet and cooing the day away. From this Dad’s view, it was one of the best days ever. After being away from her last weekend, and working all week I was accused of hogging her. I was. I admit it. She’s mine and I’m going to soak in every moment I can with her. It was great. She was great. If only the stinkin’ Flyers would win, life would be perfect. 
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