Sleep Train

No, not the mattress store and definitely not an automotive that goes choo choo. We are talking about training a baby to sleep. Before Gideon was born, I was pretty adamant about NOT letting him in our bed, NOT rocking him to sleep, and NOT walking him to sleep. This lasted oh...a few weeks. For the first few weeks of his life, Gideon slept happily without any problems in his own crib on his own. Then, thanks to his parents (yes, me and Eugene), he had to be rocked to sleep or walked to sleep every single night. In the beginning, we didn't mind so much. Then, when he got to be more than 13 pounds heavy...our backs started screaming! So, the only way we could figure out to get him back to the beginning was to train him to sleep again. Thanks to our good friends the Tuans, we employed the methods of the Baby Whisperer and Gideon is now back in his crib, able to sleep on his own without being rocked or held! We just kiss him goodnight and put him in his crib when it's his bedtime (he has actually set his own bedtime too!) while he is still awake, stand there for a couple of minutes, and then walk away while he drifts into dreamland (on the good nights). This has helped us get our nights back too. No more waiting around for Gideon to fall asleep or taking laps around the living room to walk him to sleep. Yay!!!

Next on the to do list: more naps. Gideon has a habit of taking naps only when he is utterly exhausted and will only take one nap a day.