is your baby a ferber baby?

Wow, two blogs in one day. I put some people to shame, and you know who you are! I had to get on here and mention my baby's recent sleep habits. Usually Tennyson gets up sometime between 5:30 and 6:30 for his one bottle of the night. Not bad really, considering he'd go back to sleep until around 8 o'clock after that. Except that I can never ever fall back asleep myself after getting up at this time. So I feed monster man and then he snuggles up and falls back to sleep and then I lay there forever until I finally give up and get up. Not fun.

Last Thursday night I heard him start to cry. I rolled over to look at the clock and it was 3:30am! I usually make angry noises and then haul myself out of bed to go and get the bottle, but I decided then and there that night time feedings were over! Everything I've read (and I read a lot, especially about baby stuff) says that babies don't actually need food at night after about 6 months - it's more of a habit. So I let him cry for a while, then I went and cuddled and calmed him down. Then he cried for a while more, and I cuddled him . . . you get the picture. A measly hour and a half later he fell back asleep and slept until 8. The second night only took a half an hour and one cuddle. The next night was about the same. Not that it's fun, you have to have some serious staying power because in the middle of the night it's definitely easier to just get him the bottle, especially when I'm usually back in bed 15 minutes later. A crying baby is kind of a sad thing!

An End to the Drama

Don't you just love the subtitle? I know I do. The 5th night he whimpered a little bit at the designated sucky-pants time but he never really got crying and nobody went in to console him. Since then it's been smooth sailing and he has not awakened before 7:30. Yesterday morning it was 8:30 and finally Steven went to go check on him and he was happily playing in there! He's not starving or frantic come morning, he'll even play in the living room for a little while before we feed him. Is this great or what! He goes to bed at 8pm, and gets up 12 hours later! The method may seem mean, but it only lasts a few nights, you don't leave them unattended for the whole time (remember the consolation visits to the baby room), and in the end you have a happy baby who sleeps through the night and the rest of the family who starts to get better sleeps than they have in forever!

For those of you who aren't parents, you're probably saying "meh, what a boring blog!" But I again reiterate, this stuff is gold! You should definitely bookmark this page! Someday, you'll be up in the night with your not-so-tiny baby and you'll think to yourself "Didn't Tiffany once write something about just this kind of situation?"