To sleep, perchance to dream

Just as in all fairy tales, we have our own fair maiden (we'll call her "Sleeping Beauty") and she does make for an interesting story. Most importantly, perhaps, her story is never the same two days in a row.
In fact, what we have found over the last week is that our little girl likes to sleep several hours in a row when it is most convenient to her. Usually this doesn't coincide to any time of day we can predict. It could be after a big feed or not, following a bit of fussiness or relative calm, early morning or late in the day. But what we know for sure is that it hasn't happened overnight. While Nacho and mom and I are taking turns sleeping in shifts and mapping out our days to have all bases covered, Elisa weaves in and out of dreamland as she pleases. The only consistent pattern being her rabid hunger when she does wake, gnawing on her hands and making them good and slobbery before erupting in a fit of squeals. As mom noted today, some babies wake up cooing and staring at the ceiling, but not Elisa. When she leaves her dream world, it's loud and cranky and you better have something to eat for her NOW.

Also, as these pictures suggest, we have recently started to put Elisa down on her tummy. Yes, despite my initial hesitations and all the SIDS campaigns against it, tummy sleep does seem to be more comforting to her. Mostly, it allows her to stick her hands in or around her mouth without completely smacking herself and flailing about. It also seems that she can burp, fart and wiggle without opening her eyes and waking up further. For now, we are keeping a protective eye on her during this sleep with someone always on-deck. So far, she is taking to it well and has even been showing us her upper body strength when she wakes and does her push ups to get our attention.

Overall, I keep reminding myself that it's still early for her to be sleeping long stretches at night. Culturally, I think we have the belief that if a woman can return to work between 6 to 8 or even 12 weeks, then babies ought to cooperate and give their parents more overnight sleep. But in reality, no one who has a baby that I've talked to seems to think that 3 months is a milestone for sleep. It just happens when the baby is ready. And we've already decided that Elisa may be a baby who requires less sleep than others. She definitely isn't going the 9-10 hours a night that some mothers on my internet baby board are reporting. But then, I'm pretty sure those babies must be too bored to stay awake. Our girl is all smiles and talk, wanting to ring every bit out of her awake time. And if that's the way the story goes, so be it.