S.O.S.

My little sick baby turned into an infant insomniac.  The last two nights in a row (and twice while she was still feverishly sick) she has awoken between the hours of 1 am and 3 am and insisted on staying AWAKE for several hours, despite our most thorough efforts to put her to sleep.  You name it, we've probably tried it.  One night she went for two separate 45 minute drives (I use classical music, white noise, singing or silence; Jake uses Dandy Warhols or Thievery Corp), another night she drove for an entire hour, then nursed for 20 minutes in the dark with her usual wave sounds to lull her to sleep and she still screamed unless she was allowed to crawl and play.  Last night I was quite sure she was going to take her first steps at 3:30 am and I almost went to wake Jake up to see it.  I've tried all stages of darkness, laying her in the crib with and without her favorite dolls, nursing, rocking, rocking in the chair, sitting in the window seat, singing, shushing, sleeping in our bed, sleeping in the crib, laying on the floor with pillows, drinking from a cup instead of nursing, walking around the block in the stroller, driving, driving and more driving.  I'm sure there are more attempted sleep aids, but I can't remember them because I'm so exhausted.  As a result of this nighttime wakefulness, Abigail has been taking lovely, 2.5-3.5 hour naps (this from the child who used to take two 30 minute naps in an entire day, but more recently has been taking one nap of 1.5-2 hours pretty consistently).  I haven't had the heart yet to actively wake her up from napping, since she's getting less sleep overall than usual, though I have prevented her from falling back asleep after a nice long nap numerous times and we haven't been putting her to bed before 7 pm, which is a pretty normal bedtime for her.  I think I'm maturing in my role as a mother because I don't really feel like a failure.  I just feel tired and wish I could figure out the trick to this phase of baby.  Is she doing this because we let her stay up once or twice while she was sick so that she wouldn't cry herself into vomiting?  Is she trying to master the skill of walking and just can't rest until she gives it a try?  Is she napping to long?  Does she have painful gas from eating too much broccoli?  Does she have an ear infection? (The answer to that is no, as per this morning's doctor's appointment.)  She can't be doing this to get our attention or be closer to us, because she wakes up from sleeping in between us in bed, with access to nursing if she wants it, and that's still not good enough.  How long will it last?  What do I do next?  I wish there were answers, but I know there's just advice.  Unfortunately, most of the advice is that she needs to "cry it out", which is simply not going to happen.  I guess we'll have to forge our own way.  I just wish that path involved a little more sleeping.

Eating a plum

Favorite doggie

Fun with whiffle ball during normal daylight hours

LOVES to vacuum

These sunglasses are hilarious