Everyone has heard the horror stories, er, the tales from parents about the joys of the early days that are defined by sleep deprivation, lack of time for hygiene or food, and a renewed appreciation for coffee.
My mother-in-law, Gale, for example has said often that the only way she could get my brother-in-law to sleep was to spend hours in her rocking chair. Often, her mother would arrive on weekday mornings to find Gale and Dave snoozing together in the rocking chair.
With both Jason and Dave, my mother-in-law recalls being exhausted, and just trying to get through work in a zombie-like state for the first nine months of their lives.
Now, my mom has long said I was a good sleeper, and that I was sleeping through the night by about three months old.
During the past 10 days or so, Lyla has gone from sleeping six or seven hours after being up well past 1 a.m., to conking out for the night around midnight and sleeping about eight hours. Sometimes we’re lucky and she sleeps a little more.
Up until two days ago, she had slept in our room in a bassinet, which was graciously provided by a friend of Gale’s. Had we not been given a bassinet, we wouldn’t have had one, as I had no intention of spending the money. I am quite thankful for the gift as it has been well used.
She has pretty much outgrown the bassinet. Lyla is a bit bigger now than she was in this picture, which was taken Feb. 9. Well, she’s longer, taller.

So, two nights ago Jason put her down in her crib. This is how I found her around 7:30 this morning. She fell asleep for good around midnight. She was still asleep when I left the house around 8:20.

It’s weird that she’s not in our room. Especially now that she’s sleeping pretty well — a trend that I hope continues — we had adjusted to her sleeping in the bassinet.
Last night after we crawled into bed, Jason was initially on high alert for cries of distress coming from Lyla’s room, but whatever noise he heard was likely one of our beagles or our evil orange tabby cat.
I think we should invest in a baby monitor now.
I am glad, though, that she’s finally in her crib and in her room.
But, now this really forces me to clean it up. Her clothes need to be reorganized as she’s outgrown all the newborn stuff finally and I need to get a few other baby items put away. Plus we have stored our Christmas wrap under her crib but it so doesn’t work because the storage boxes don’t fit underneath it. So, you have to try not to trip when approaching the crib.
In the end, though, I guess these are all good problems to have.
And maybe now that I’m getting more sleep I can wean myself off coffee again.
Ah, the joys of parenthood.