Insects & Cowboys

I think you'll agree that sleep is very important for an infant. We are struggling a bit with sleeping through the night still, but our daytime routine is (somewhat) set. Our little guy is too young to "Ferberize", so we still console him to put him to sleep for naps and at night. I have been reading up on this Ferber method and am a bit sceptical. If we do it, we will likely modify it to suit our comfort zone...particularily the "letting your child cry until he barfs is OK" part...NOT!

I'll admit we do some no-no's like picking him up out of bed when he's upset to rock him back to sleep instead of consoling him while he's in his bed, letting him fall asleep on us and sometimes take a short nap there instead of his bed. At times, when he won't go back into his bad (typically in the middle of the night) we have brought him into our bed, so we can get some sleep. These are all things we shouldn't be doing...especially the co-bedding, but we're new, he's new and we're working on it!

We have both found things that will either relax or calm him or put him to sleep. C started singing the song "Burning Ring of Fire" to N one night out of the blue during a screaming fit after bath and he calmed down. Now, that song works everytime. I was even singing it, but decided that I needed my own song. A couple of weeks ago I started singing a bunch of random kid songs trying to put N to sleep and have found that, without fail, "The Ants Go Marching In" works like a charm.

It's funny what works, but it's so important to find that for your child and also for your own sanity. One song about love and another about bugs...for our LOVE BUG!