Sleepless in Owass0 {just had to do it...}

When we had Brynlee {and the weeks leading up to her birth} everyone kept saying, "the first two weeks are the harderst, "just get through the first two weeks and you will be fine." Maybe for most people this is the case- but not so for us! Of course the first two weeks weren't easy, but compared to the last three, it was a breeze.

The first two weeks Brynlee slept great {in my opinion}. It may have only been two hours at a time, but it was 20 hours of the day. Through the night she would sleep, wake up to nurse and go immediately back to sleep. Now, it was hard getting up all the time {and we stayed up later so that we didn't get up as much "through the night"} but we were still able to sleep through the night. She also ate great {which is still the case}. Luckily we really didn't have too many issues with breast feeding.

Once we hit the three week mark- things changed dramatically. First off, Brynlee was having a growth spurt. This meant she wanted to eat every hour or hour and a half- if we were lucky. Imagine you are eating each hour and it takes you at least 30 minutes to eat. By the time she was done and would fall asleep- it was time to eat again. So for a solid four days this was our life. I basically did not get up off the couch!

I don't know if it's because she wasn't sleeping because she was always eating, or something else, but when this was over Brynlee was no longer sleeping. She would nurse, fall asleep and twenty minutes after we put her down she would be wide awake again. We would get her back asleep and twenty minutes later- awake. Super frustrating. That lasted about a week. Then this glorious week she just decided to not sleep at all. I could get her to sleep maybe 3-4 hours throughout the day {only in my arms} but that was it. She wasn't going to bed until 4-6 A.M. 

All week we tried different things
- sleeping on her back, side and stomach
- swaddling her in blankets, swaddlers, putting a blanket over her or leaving her without anything
- we moved her into her crib, used the swing, car seat, driving in the car and  the bassinet
- we tried music, static noise, a noise maker and ocean waves
- we tried rocking her, walking around, standing next to running water, laying on the couch with her
- we tried letting her sleep all day whenever she wanted and keeping her awake as much as possible 

I am pretty sure there were other things that I can't even remember.

All this to say: last night for the first time in three weeks... she slept!! She was asleep from 10:30-2:30 and 3:15-7:45. Let's just say it was AMAZING. Now we didn't sleep all that great {keep thinking she was going to wake up- couldn't relax}. 

Grace loves baby cousin Brynlee!

maybe a little jealous about mommy holding the baby!

BUT here is the problem. Now we need to recreate whatever we did last night so that she will sleep again! Not really even sure about what we did differently {if there was anything}. Or maybe she just decided it was time. Either way we are just praying she will sleep again tonight {not a good track record for Saturday nights}.

Most of the pictures are from Christmas... but since I didn't get around to post about it- here they are!