Sleepless in Hong Kong

Just when you get your horse used to living on nothing, it up and dies on you. So was the tale last night, as I endured a DISTURBING night of lack of sleep. Little sleepy one (shown left) was unfortunately NOT that sleepy last night (and, horribly, the night before), awakening no less than 5 times. Not to eat, necessarily, but just to make her discomfort generally known. Actually, she only woke once to eat (well, twice, if you count the 5:45 hell wakeup). She woke up twice because of temperature issues (damn our communist air conditioner!), once because the cat was being loud (mom - do you want the cat back??) another time because she'd broken out of her supposed Miracle Swaddle Blanket, for which we paid a small fortune(shown here). What's worse, is that this all comes after a wonderful 3 week stretch of single-wakeups (one 6hr stretch, followed by one 4hr stretch - not bad, eh?), during which time I was lulled into a false sense of security and "my baby sleeps through the night" smugness. The "does your baby sleep through the night" question is really the hot topic here. It's the question I'm most regularly asked by the locals, who seem to be sleep obsessed. "You have to train your baby!" seems to be the consensus. I'm honestly not sure how to do that. Some suggest that giving water instead of milk in the middle of the night is the way to go. Others suggest simply ignoring her cries, and letting her just go and go until she pukes and passes out. Believe me - that second option has sounded good at times, but evidence has shown that this baby has an INFINITE amount of energy for crying, and I'm pretty sure that after an hour or so, I'd give in and feed her. Who wouldn't? And the water thing might work for some people, but I'm still breastfeeding, and trying to keep a good supply going, so skipping out on one feed a night is not on. Also, most of these times, she's not waking to eat anyway! Just to fuss! So how exactly I implement a training program in there, is unclear. My absolute favorite suggestion is to "Leave the baby with the Amah - let her deal with it!". (For those of you not Hong Kong locals, "Amah" is the cantonese word for "Domestic Helper", or, what is commonly the case, "Surrogate Mother".) I guess I would get more sleep if I relinquished my nighttime parenting duties ... Hmm... The only thing that saved me last night was that Ryan managed to completely take over at 5:45 for the last wake-up. He put the baby in the sling (Our Amah, May, HATES the sling, and blames it for all of Ara's sleep issues -- which, incidentally, were nonexistant before she stopped sleeping in the sling... but I digress...) and managed to keep her happy while I slept until 8. For that, I will be forever grateful. After that terrible night, the only thing I was able to do was heave myself out of bed, and watch Rockstar:Supernova, which, I'm sad to say, was dissapointing. I will say little else, for those of you reading this before the show airs in your timezone. Suffice it to say, Delana's Got To Go. Rob Zombie is NOT right for Our Band. Why they like her is beyond me.