Sleep training day 2

If it were easy, it wouldn't be hard...*

Wednesday Morning Nap: Soothed B.G. to sleep at 10 AM. She immediately woke up when I put her in her bed (shock!) and screamed. I let her scream 30 minutes, got her, and had her asleep by 10:40. She slept about an hour.

Wednesday Afternoon Nap: It seemed pretty obvious that B.G. needed good quality sleep, and while I want her to get used to her own bed, she sleeps better on mine. So I soothed her to sleep and put her on my bed around 2:30.

Wednesday Night: I knew B.G. needed to go to sleep earlier, but to have some consistency, I didn't put her down hours earlier. I started her bedtime routine by 6:30, and she was showing obvious signs of needing to go to bed by 8:30, so I sang her some songs, she was drowsy, and I put her to bed. Screaming commenced and lasted 50 minutes. She was asleep by 9:30 and slept until 12:30, at which point I brought her to bed.

My Baby Girl is still the happiest, most playful little thing there is. In other words, there has been no sign that she is not handling this well. Which makes me think the Sears' don't know everything. And they might even be wrong about how babies interpret being left to cry it out.

Isn't it funny how many different perspectives there are about how to raise children. On one extreme of the spectrum you have Baby Wise, which works great for many people, but can be dangerous to a baby's health if taken to the extreme. On the other end is Co-sleeping and child-directed parenting (also known as attachment parenting.) Whenever you share what you've decided to do, people come out of the woodwork with horror stories, or telling you "I could never let any baby cry, it's inhumane, you must be a monster." Or if you co-sleep "Heavenly Father knows I could never survive if my baby didn't sleep through the night." Really? Or how about "Why do some parents just 'give in' to their child? I'm the parent, my child does what I say." Yeah, good luck with that when he's a teenager.

What we really need as mothers is support, not judgement. Do we need information? Often. Do we need advice? If we ask for it. Do we need love and understanding? Definitely. This is what I've prayerfully decided to do.

*Sheri Dew