A new sheriff moved into town yesterday and her name is "The Baby Whisperer". In an attempt to regain some sense of sanity, I decided to try to get Tommy on some kind of routine. I was given this book when I had Luna. We made some feeble attempts at it but never stuck with it. Ahem... we still hold hands for 30+ minutes every night.
The Baby Whisperer takes a pretty sane, moderate and DEFINITELY humane approach to sleep and general life with Baby. She is not down with the give-all-of-yourself-all-the-time model of attachment parenting that I had been using. Nor does she support the Evil Dr. Ferber's cry it out method. Her whole thing is about teaching your kid to fall asleep on his own WITHOUT ruining torturing anyone (I tried the cry it out thing once with Luna and I was definitely the one tortured by it).
Without getting too much into detail, I am floored that we are at the end of Day One and Tommy laid in bed for 15 minutes by himself and then finally went to sleep on his own. No crying! He just was in there talking to himself and staring at the light of the Full Moon on the wall. I am amazed! Luna has NEVER fallen asleep on her own except for one hot summer day when she fell asleep reading books naked on her bedroom floor.
Wish us luck for Night One!
3 comments:
Wow, I'm impressed. I'm feeling pretty good about myself tonight: put the kids into bed, said I was going to tidy up their mess...and they're still there, and it's quiet. I'm scared to go in and check too soon 'cause they might realize they can ask me to stay. Could I have turned a corner? Are my days of sitting on the edge of the bed (or, on particularly tired nights, lying in the bed with Paddy) over? Paddy will be 3 years old in 8 days...it has taken long enough!
Just checked...both asleep. I am awesome!
I was given a similar book (can't remember the title) when I was pregnant, and lo and behold it actually worked, too, when I tried it--I think it was around a year. I got sucked back into the rock and sing until asleep thing in the months that followed and then around 18 months I went back to all-out rituals and then leaving the room thing for night and naps. It's worked pretty good. Keeps me sane, too :). Hope it keeps working!
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