Wednesday, February 18, 2009

nighttime crying

There are all these 'parenting styles' out there, from 'baby training' to 'attachment parenting', and there are those to fully subscribe to one or the other of them and are very pro-that-choice. But I think most of us just do what comes naturally, or what we can handle, or what keeps us sane. We take the tidbits of information we've heard out there, from family, friends, and books and then we use it or don't use it or modify it to do what works for us.

We had a conversation about nighttime and waking babies last night with two couples, good friends, who have babies close to a's age. Neither one of them can stand letting their baby cry at night, and we left feeling like the mean parents! But our baby cries himself to sleep in my arms sometimes too, so he's just one of those babies. The big decision maker - our friends would rather let their babies sleep in bed with them than listen to them cry. We'd rather listen to him cry, because at least we know he's safe. The little man sleeps GREAT in our bed (we've given in now and then) but it's so cushy, and there are so many big blankets, and we like to move a lot.. it makes us nervous. The other option is rocking him to sleep, which we do most of the time, but 8 times out of 10 he wakes up once we put him down in bed anyway (I'm NOT about to sit up holding him all night! I have given in and done this, it's not fun.) It kind of comes down to this being the only option that will keep us sane and let us get some sleep. And, hopefully a benefit of it is that he's learning to fall asleep on his own. Last night he finally only woke up once, to eat! yay! (Before that it was one or two additional times.)

The real reason I started writing about sleeping though? Our rolling over baby has now figured out he can roll over and sleep on his tummy. He doesn't do it until very early morning, so the last two mornings we've woken up to him sleeping on his tummy. Hopefully if this becomes a habit, it will help him sleep longer, and better. I am holding out hope for having a baby who sleeps all night soon.

by yellowgirl at 7:54 AM |