Molly has been waking up around 4 am for a while now. It doesn’t matter if we put her to bed early or late, or how much she eats the night before; she usually wakes up around 4 am regardless. She starts talking and stirring. When we check on her, her eyes are normally wide open and she is smiling or even giggling when she sees us. Any other time of day, this is a very sweet sight. But not at 4 am! Go back to sleep! It’s 4 am! I am always repeating this mantra to Kit. I don’t want to see a giggling baby at 4 am. And of course it takes a while, sometimes 30 to 60 minutes, for Molly to fall back asleep. More often than not, I don’t get really back to sleep; I just dose until 6 am. If I feel peppy, I just get up early and get a few things done.

But last night was a different. Rather than the usual light babbling and stirring 4 am, Molly woke up really crying. When I checked on her, she was laying on her stomach. Now, we always put her to sleep on her back to help avoid the SIDS and what not. But tonight she had rolled herself onto her tummy in her sleep and sounded rather annoyed by it. I rolled her back on to her back (SIDS and what not) and gave her a pacifier because I really wanted to get back to sleep. Molly suddenly flipped herself back on her tummy and then immediately fell asleep, eyes closed and not a peep! This is the first time she has ever gone back to sleep that fast! And for the first time in memory, Claire woke me up that morning rather than Molly, and at 7 am no less! Molly was still sound asleep on her tummy until 7:30, shattering any past sleep-in records.

Perhaps I should be cautious about jinxing this, but this seems the like sleep breakthrough I had been waiting for. I dare to hope that this is the beginning of better and longer sleeping for Molly (and for me and Kit). Of course, I know better than that. Babies are notoriously unpredictable. Just when you think you have them figured out, they’ll throw something new at you. But I can say for sure that I enjoyed sleeping in until 7 am at least this one morning!