Thursday, December 24, 2009

Avoiding complacency: or why my baby will never sleep through the night twice in a row.

We're "bring it on" kind of people. We don't like to get comfy and cozy and ride through life with everything going easy. So, as soon as we've mastered one thing we'll completely abandon it and move on to the next. This is why the Wii fit is covered in 6 months of dust, the "menu plan" has more scribbling-outs than check marks on it, and the Christmas shopping is officially declared "over" once I find one perfect present.

So since Thomas slept CLEAR through the night, we thought we'd better mix it up a bit.

And we took the plunge, moving him from his oh-so-cozy car seat to the big-bad-crib-of-death-and-destruction. Or at least that's how he saw it.

It started with naps - which did not go well. We tried to "cry it out" which sucks and is not successful for us. EVER. Please don't recommend Babywise. So we rocked him and soothed him and assured him that the crib isn't such a bad place. He seemed to prefer the "crying it out" since that's what he did anyway. Then we I name-called and told him not to be such a cry-baby and reminded him we I could sell him to the gypsies any time we I wanted. Then we I felt guilty for picking on my baby. Plus he was doing the adorable pouty face that you can't help but love.

Nap time was over by then. So we opted to eat instead of sleep. If I had a nickel for every time I opted to eat instead of sleep....


At bed time I was just thankful I wasn't alone anymore and Josh was there to help. 2 on 1 seems like better odds in any situation. And I showed him my appreciation.....by abandoning him for the gym.

That night Thomas slept until about 2:30 in the morning - when I again showed Josh my appreciation by making him get up with the babe. After one night I was already adjusted to sleeping through the night and couldn't function without a full night's sleep. Josh tells me he ate and went right back down, but Josh is much less whiney than me (I've pretty much covered the "I'm a whiney brat" territory right?) so I'm not sure what "right back down" really means.

Yesterday he managed 1.5 naps in his crib with relatively little sobbing.

Today it's only 1:30 and he's done 2 full naps in his crib after sleeping until 4:30 this morning.

If he keeps this up we may have to move his bed out on the balcony just for the challenge.

1 comment:

  1. Ah, the joys of trying to train your baby to sleep. Why do we have to train them? Shouldn't they just know how? Asher had it down pat for the first month-- he must have forgotten. We've been doing the transition to the crib from the cradle, so I feel your pain. It sounds like Thomas is getting better every day, though! Good luck. And merry Christmas!

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