My plan was to prolong the feeding-free time by one hour each night. I started with 4 hours of feeding-free time. That meant we skipped her favourite meal - her 12 o'clock feeding, but it was perfectly manageable because it was only one hour of postponing and shushing. The next night was a bit more difficult. By third day Erkki had developed a new habit. Each evening he asked, "so... No feeding until 5 a.m. today? Oh THAT will be tough." The next morning I breathed out a sigh of relief that everything is still going by plan. As days went by Erkki's prediction of problems ahead started to get hopeful. "If you keep this up, she won't eat AT ALL during the night." Well yes, that's the general plan.
I was persistent and it paid off. Until I got to the final feedings. Starting from 7 a.m. there is a real risk that if Siiri is awake for an entire minute (
) she might decide she likes being awake. That really tested my skills of getting her back to sleep without feeding. It had been so much easier to just pop in a breast and see baby drift back to sleep. The problem with that was that I couldn't sneak back to bed for the risk of waking her up. So I just took an early morning nap in stead. I had thought if I just don't feed her she won't even wake up at 7 a.m. and I'll get to sleep until morning. I'll be so much better rested without all those nighttime interruptions. However, I overlooked one tiny detail: without all those nighttime interruptions Siiri too was so much better rested and was no longer sleepy after 8 a.m. 
After some experimenting, I reached a compromise for us. I feed her at 8 a.m. and she's welcome to stay awake if she wants to. Except I won't. I give her a few toys to play with and I turn off the baby monitor. I can hear distress-crying without it but I can just sleep thought her "entertain me, mommy"-crying. She's fed and safe and I'm happily asleep. She's already getting used to it. Today she played alone for half an hour. I almost went there to take a peek that she's still okay.
A few nights ago Siiri made her all-time sleep record. She had 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep.
I haven't been so well-rested in months. I am almost able to participate in conversations now, without my brain short-circuiting from all that mental strain. My IQ grew a few points overnight. Oh that's why stereotypical mommies are so simpleminded.
I can honestly say that for a long time it was really difficult to follow a group discussion. It felt like everyone was talking so fast.Sidenote... She's been asleep for nearly an hour and she started crying in the other room. I resisted an urge to get up and go check on her. There's a 3-minute rule I read in a book. If I manage to wait for 3 minutes, my baby might actually fall asleep on her own. Even better if I manage 10 minutes because then it's pretty certain she'll just fall asleep. I had no plan. I just sat and listened. It took 20 seconds for her to fall asleep again.
I also managed to write a decent second draft of the article. It kept me busy for a while. I'm almost happy with it. At least now that it hasn't come back all red with corrections and suggestions. I actually managed to read scientific articles. That's certainly a step beyond social conversations when it comes to mental strain.
Baby Update: Siiri weighed 8,61 kg at her 9-month check-up and she's 70 cm in length. There is hardly a surface she won't use to pull herself up. She learned to make careful side-steps while holding on to furniture and she's actively flexing her legs while standing. Her physical development then went to be background and she has started to pay more attention to words again. She doesn't get tired of the game where she points toward the ceiling lamp and I say "lamp". As simple as that. She can play it in every room and even when we're visiting someone else. And today when I was going to the lab for a little while and waved to Siiri, "Bye Siiri, I'll see you in a couple of hours", Siiri stared with a happy expression and suddenly lifted her hand and waved right back at me!
Super cute!
Or should I say I HAVE BEEN too lazy to stop her?
So I woke up at night in the wrong bed, where I nurse Siiri. I looked at Siiri with tired confusion and a hope of putting her back in her bed. She looked back with lively energy and a hopeful look asking "wanna play?". 
I quickly offered her food because it usually makes her sleepy. She took a few sips and then looked at me with that after-Christmas-meal stuffed look. Then she quickly rolled away and started to make her way toward the edge of bed. I caught her ankle and shook my head to get my eyes to focus in the same place. I was desperate for more sleep. I tried leaving her to play alone in her bed while I sleep another hour or two but she - surprise-surprise - did not cooperate with that plan.
This is the longest she has had frequent wake-ups. Her sleep has been getting worse ever since teething started at 4 months of age. With nearly every tooth there has been a time when I feed her almost every hour at night. It was so hard to make her feel better any other way and, to be honest, breastfeeding is a really pleasant and relaxing activity. Almost like getting high on happy-hormones without any life-threatening side effects. Teething was a great excuse to let her wake me up and not do anything to correct it. She woke up from pain anyway and I could really make her feel better by offering her food. 
Babies are creatures of habit - if a baby is fed to sleep at night, at many nights in a row, several times during a night, she will really start to expect her parent to feed her to sleep. Now Siiri is not growing a tooth even though her 8th should be almost here. Now I could be the one keeping her bad habit alive. I only have to stop feeding her and problem is solved. 
If it works, I'll get to go to parties again. My brain will have some processing power. My muscles will get the rest to heal from heavy workouts. 
I really hadn't thought about it but I do it quite often. Frankly, it does not matter if I wet my lips by pushing out my tongue to touch my lips or by pulling in my lips to touch my tongue. So I do actually lick my lips in this different sort of way. Guilty as charged.
without applying lip balm but not much longer, except at night.
I'm very proud of her for pulling herself up with such ease. Her body is quite solid and still when she's holding balance standing straight. Yet her hands are clutching the bed like her life depends on it. There she stands with a straight body chanting "mmeEmmeEmmeEmmeEmmeEm!" (mmyMommyMommyMom)
Later I had returned the Worm to her bed and what did Siiri do? She carefully pushed Worm between crib bars and watched it fall again and then laughed. I wonder what Worm did to deserve such harsh treatment...
Sending out so much spam has got me listed in some email black lists and now several emails that were sent to me bounced back with some comment about untrustworthy recipient. I can still use the email address to log into Blogger, for example. At least Hotmail didn't freeze my account because I got a few new emails today.
, including professors, ancient romantic interests, former acquaintances, and all the other people I had gladly forgotten. I really hope no one fell for the "DEAR FRIEND" beginning and I hope no one clicked on that link.
Like the 90ies exploded all over freeware. Just white boxes and gray edges. Oh I'm sure you can visit options and make it green boxes and blue edges if you want, but in the end it still looks worse than your average beginner web page made by some friendly colorblind highschool geek.
I have been unusually serene and blissfully calm (most of the time) ever since Siiri was born for which I "blame" breastfeeding hormones. Now I realize my reaction is mostly RELIEF! I'm so calm because I'm relieved! 
Or I could have sent them a horrible malware that wipes their computers clean, and not in the good and tidy way. Even those money scams "please send me money so I can give you the millions you inherited" would have been worse. I don't even know how my email account was stolen so it really could have been any random spam. 
Actually I don't know if I linked everyone to a nasty malware site. I didn't try clicking it. 
Carefully places her hand, then the other one and then tries to pull her knees closer for better balance. Then she carefully places one feet sole to the floor and becomes very wobbly as she tries to get the other sole to the floor and both legs straight. And then she falls down sitting. But sometimes she doesn't fall - she gets a good starting position and manages to get both legs straight with her feet firmly on the ground. She gets really excited with her success and tries to jump up and down, 
except she CAN'T jump yet. As she tries to flex her knees, her legs get all stiff and start trembling. She can't even sit back down carefully so she lets go with her hands and falls down sitting from quite a high position. 
"No, don't. No, don't. No, don't. No, don't. No, don't. No, don't.". She has a lot of freedom with a few rules she already understands. Lovely smart baby.