Kara's 11-month "birthday"

Kara turned 11 months old today, an event which kick-started my mandatory process of retrospection. So much has gone on that trying to summarize it all would involve accounting far more information than anybody would be willing to read, myself included. In a nutshell: I still don't feel I'm up for doing this again, ever. Despite that, Kara's a delightful little girl; when I'm with her, I'm happier than I've probably ever been. The process of raising a child is every bit as challenging and rewarding as it's made out to be, and I realize I'm saying this from the standpoint of someone who had it much, much easier than most.

What's new: following Emma and Logan's visit on Tuesday, Kara napped horribly. That is part of an ongoing trend towards losing any daytime naps whatsoever. Consequently, she was testing us more than usual that evening. This resulted in an early, crib-bound bedtime for her. The backstory: Kara had been bed-sharing at nights with Matt and I until that point, and for the brief stint with sleep-training when she was 6 months old. With her waking only an average of 2 times a night recently, I just couldn't bring myself to put her in a crib in another room, one floor down, only to have to stumble into it, sleep-deprived and bleary-eyed, twice a night. Incorporating a piece of advice from a sleep-training book a friend lent me, I mandated that Kara should feel up to crying for 10 minutes before Matt or I were to respond. The result is that she slept from 8pm to midnight (when I chose to breastfeed her), then slept without waking from midnight to 7am! The same occurred last night.

As for a night like tonight — when I have support from Matt during the day all tomorrow — I've decided to allow Kara to dictate the breastfeeding schedule (if there is to be one), following the 10-minute rule. With any luck, she pushes straight through to 7am, and we can kiss the nights of shitty sleep goodbye. Whatever the outcome, I feel a lot better knowing that I can probably manage one decent night's worth of sleep per night.