Sleep Update - getting better!
When the Pickle was a newborn, my mother told me that when the four of us were babies, our sleep would always get screwy for a few days before a major milestone. I think she must have been onto something, because the Pickle has been working really hard on crawling the past few weeks, and just this weekend managed to push up onto his knees and scoot-crawl backwards. Not exactly what he was going for, but still very exciting! And last night, he slept almost straight through, waking up just twice to eat, and going back to sleep easily without a pacifier both times. (Yes, two easy wakings is “almost sleeping through” for us. It’s one waking each, meaning I got almost 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep last night. I call that a win.)
I also attribute some of this to my new policy (which I’m really following for real this time) of not going to get him unless he’s *actually crying*. I remain philosophically opposed to the “cry it out” method - I don’t want to teach him that I won’t come for him if he needs me - but letting him fuss it out is a whole nother matter. And I’ve been doing this for long enough now that I can hear the difference between “I’m hungry/scared/have flipped over and am stuck in the corner and can’t get out” and “I’m awake and bored and I bet if I yell loud enough I can get Mom to come in and feed me.” The first, I’ll respond to. The second - sorry kid, you’re on your own. Go back to sleep. And you know what? He does! What a good little boy I have.
Monday, January 7th, 2008