The Secret to a Restful Night

Hello all you new mothers and fathers out there (and to those you find this blog post absolutely useless, I do apologize).

Ivy will be having ear tubes placed in both ears on Monday. The procedure is considered 'surgery' and for that, yes, I am freaking out. After literally visiting the doctor every other week since about October, we decided she would very likely be a happier baby if we had the procedure done.

In preparing for the procedure, which requires her to eat nothing (including water) after midnight the prior night, we have been trying to find the perfect overnight scenario to get her rested without a milk bottle in the middle of the night or early morning.

Until now, Ivy has always been a very good night sleeper, often going down at 7pm without a fuss and sleeping (at least, not waking Mom and Dad) until 5:30am the next morning. Since the latest ear infection that has been around now for several weeks and the numerous antiobiotics to attempt to resolve it, she has had a very frequent habit of waking around 2am and relentlessly wailing. We've slowly been weening out a multitude of issues, only one of which I will share at this time.

Often when she woke recently, she had completely drenched her onesie and pajama outfit. She tends to drink a lot of water with dinner and then gets a light bottle before bedtime stories. Well, we noticed that it happened only sparatically, even though she generally had the same amount of drinking fluid before bedtime. Well, we found out, that she often didn't pee through her clothes on BATH nights!!! That's right, we are pretty certain that at bathtime, she takes the time to take a pre-night pee in the bath water, thus expelling just enough fluid as to not overwhelm her nighttime diapers.

So, my friends, the lesson is, that no matter the time and effort that bath-time may require at night, it can be well worth a restful night.
 We still have other issues to iron out before Sunday night, but at least we have tackled one of our many foes.