And the sleep saga continues...

Well...Scott, Ada, and I survived one of the worst nights yet. God continues to humble me in this position as Ada's mother. I think I have things all figured out, and here we are at 7 months, and Ada's sleeping habits are worse than ever. As I mentioned yesterday, her new thing is to flip onto her stomach and cry hysterically until we turn her over. Well, at 9 pm last night, when Ada had been asleep for only one hour of the entire day, I called my mom desperately seeking advice, and she suggested to try letting Ada "cry it out" on her stomach. We tried this, and it seemed to work for about an hour, but then when Scott and I went to bed at 11:00, she began to wake up crying every ten minutes. At first she would wake up, cry for about a minute, fall back asleep, wake up ten minutes later, and repeat the process. However, at about midnight, she woke up and would not fall back asleep. At this point, we both got out of bed prepared for a very long night. Around 1 am, we let her cry for ten minutes (it was a very hard cry that was miserable for all involved--it is just a mother's instinct to want to comfort a crying baby), and then I practically ran in there, picked her up, comforted her, and put her down on her back. At that point she was so worn out from crying--we all were worn out from her crying--that she finally, finally fell asleep, and slept from 1:30-7:45. This was not a bad night's sleep for me, six hours--a really full night back in college--but for little Ada, this was only half of the sleep she needs in a night. As a result, she has been such a grumpy little thing today, and we are into our second round of trying to get her to nap. I put her back down at 9 am, knowing she needed the sleep, and we did the cry on her stomach for five minutes routine. It didn't last too long, and she eventually fell asleep on her stomach for about 45 minutes, and then she woke up crying. I got her up, tried to feed her, she continued to be fussy, and now, at 11:10 am, she has finally settled back down for a nap. Maybe this one will be longer. I don't really count a nap a success unless it lasts at least an hour. It just makes me feel very helpless because I know she is so tired, I know the only thing that will help her is for her to sleep, but she can't seem to settle into good sleep. In reality, I know that this is not suffering, but because I am terrible at keeping up with Ada's baby book, I use this blog as a way to record these early days of her life, and I want to remember these moments for later. I know there are many more sleepless night ahead, and suffering much greater than this, and I willingly take all of it in exchange for getting to be Ada's mom. But in the daily grind of being a mom to an infant, it helps to have a place to vent. I am praying for grace for this day--for patience and perspective. I want to glorify God even in this daily stuff. Because if I can't glorify Him in this, in this tiny inconvenience, what about when I face the real suffering in life? How I am faced with the reality of my sinful, selfish nature!! How desperate I am for God's grace and patience with me!!! I need Him every second, even in life's daily grind.