Hooray for Sleep Progress

Since we gave up nursing before bedtime, my son has been taking a bottle from my husband. At first I had to shut myself in the bathroom so I wouldn't hear his crying. He didn't cry for more than five minutes, but I still felt very guilty, as I was abandoning a routine that nurtured and comforted him. I swear he gave me the stink eye one morning. A few days later, he accepted the change and didn't even cry before bed. This was a relief to me, though I missed spending cozy quiet time with my baby at the end of a hectic day.

Tonight my husband had to go to a meeting, and for the first time since we've weaned, I took on bedtime duties. I expected my son to protest the bottle from me. But no! We cuddled, he drank the bottle, and he didn't even cry. I am happy that I am once again able to take part in a cozy nighttime routine.

Co-Sleeping

We are part-time co-sleepers. Or should it be half-of-the-time sleepers? Our son starts every night in his own crib, but in the middle of the night he usually wakes up, and he usually ends up spending the rest of the night nestled between us.

I think more people co-sleep than admit it. It starts innocently, when they are newborns and you cannot take your eyes off of them. How can something be so cute, you wonder. Or maybe you both fall asleep in the middle of the night nursing. The next thing you know, you wake up at 4 in the morning and have a toddler practicing his clapping skills and whispering "nigh nigh, nigh nigh."

I won't go over the benefits and challenges of co-sleeping. It is one of those things that you either fall into or avoid, and there is probably no going back either way.

If you are co-sleeping, you probably are tired right now and need a laugh. These instructional drawings on How to Be a Dad are so funny, so true. Our favorites are Snow Angel, H is for Hell, and Jazz Hands.

Goodnight Gorilla

My son has been pointing at the moon, balls, bananas, ducks, trains, dogs, cats and hats and approximating their names. He has also been developing a sly sense of humor. The combination of these things has made reading Goodnight Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann quite fun.

A tired zookeeper goes about the zoo, saying goodnight to the lion, elephant, armadillo and others. Meanwhile, the gorilla has been following him and unlocking each animal from its cage. They all follow the zookeeper home, trying to settle down for the night in his bedroom until the zookeeper's wife notices the menagerie. Off they all go back to the zoo!

This book is really simple with few words, so it is all about noticing the details in the pictures. There is a moon on several of the pages, a balloon floats through a few of them, and a little mouse tugs along a banana throughout. One page is all black, splatted all over with the word bubbles "good night." The next page is all black except for two very round eyes. "Uh-oh" we say together and laugh.

Besides all of the pointing at animals and trying to find the banana and the moon on each page, the story taps into a level of humor that a 15-month-old can get. Plus the theme of wanting to snuggle up in the caretaker's bed instead of your own is one that, ahem, may resonate with our little guy.

Bed Time

A friend gave us good advice before our baby was born--make sure you like your bedroom. She was right. With nursing and occasional co-sleeping, we spent a lot of time awake in our room the first year. We still spend a fair amount of time awake.

Paint it, rearrange it, get rid of things that are clutter. Splurge on new sheets and bedding. A fresh room and a cozy bed makes being awake at odd hours more liveable, and it facilitates falling back to sleep after a sleep cycle has been disrupted. I can't control when my son wakes, but I can at least control my environment!

Speaking of, and I know I am jinxing this, but...last night he slept from 8pm to 7am. And the night before from 8pm to 5am. New year's resolution #1 achieved!

New Years Resolutions

2013 will bring us more teeth, more words, and more activity.

Here are some of my resolutions for 2013 as a parent:

• Sleep through the night, even if it means going to a hotel and leaving him with grandma! My reserves are tapped, and rest is necessary to patiently keep up for a year of toddlerhood.
• Watch what I say. Our little guy is listening, and tone and words can make an imprint. I aim to be less critical of myself and others when I'm speaking and follow the maxim "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." There may be some silence in 2013.
• Or, fill that silence with French. We are committed to raising our son bilingually. My husband speaks to him 100% in French, but I know that he needs to hear more French conversation. My sleep deficit makes clearly communicating even in English a challenge. But this year I aim to have at least one conversation a day en français.

Happy new year!

Nighttime Routine

Some babies have melt downs when they are tired. Ours powers through, getting more and more hyper until he crashes. He has gone an entire day without napping and was still in good spirits by bedtime. Because of this, and since we both work and don't get to see him all day, it was a while before we were motivated to put him to bed at an early as part of a fixed routine.

We had a nighttime routine when our son was a newborn, but we never updated it as his needs and our schedules changed. After a few months, there was very little routine at all. We would wait until he was obviously tired before I tried to nurse him to sleep. This meant that we often had a giddy baby on our hands who would crack himself up and not get settled down until 10pm. It was fun but exhausting. We needed a routine!

This is what a typical evening looks like, give or take a half hour start time:

6:30 dinner
6:50 bath/clean up after dinner
7:00 pajamas on and read some books with a very dim lamp
7:10 nurse while playing music--we listen to Peter and the Wolf or the Carnival des Animaux
7:30 sleeping baby

The day of this photo, he didn't even take a nap.

We do keep flexible, but this is a framework. If we are out later than usual as a family, we might skip bath or books when we get back. If I cannot get dinner ready by 6:30, I'll give him a separate dinner while I'm cooking. Sooner rather than later we'll have to replace the nursing with cuddling, but this is much more functional than what we were doing. The trick is to start the routine before he goes beyond sleepy and into silly hilarity.