Getting...Back to Sleep

The best time to start to prepare your dinner is when your baby is napping, that is of course if you are fortunate enough to get your baby down for his or her nap.  Otherwise, you can drag that oversized baby swing right into your kitchen.  Don’t place it next to the hot stove or where you will be cutting and peeling onions and garlic, and don’t let your baby play with any knives.  Your baby should just enjoy watching you, although your kitchen won’t sound like the set of a typical Rachel Ray show.  Emanating from your kitchen will hopefully be the sounds of a happily coo-ing newborn.   I serenaded Gavin with the Alphabet song so many times that I came to the realization that Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the Alphabet are the same melody.  Nothing changed as baby Gavin grew to actual babble stage except the swing got larger, and I finally had done my parental due diligence and learned a few actual nursery rhymes.    

Napping is by far the hardest thing to accomplish as a FTM.  If you are one of those crazy people out there that thinks that having a schedule for your baby is a ridiculous notion then…well, you are ridiculous.  Schedules and routines are very important for a child.  Even from an early age they have the ability to learn confidence and trust.  They can anticipate what is coming next and get adjusted to what is familiar.  Fall off of a schedule and things can very quickly be set on a course for disaster.  It can take days to get things back to normal, what ever your household “normal” may be.

My son is a tummy sleeper.  Right now, just about every Back to Sleep program advocate is preparing their posters to picket outside of my home.  And, just in case you were wondering, no I am not some rebellious mom who just happened to decide that defying the recommendations of every doctor and nurse would be a good idea.  My son made that decision all on his own. 

For five and a half weeks my son slept in our bed and on my chest.  I thought for sure I would sleep in a sitting position for the rest of my life.  The sad part was that I truly thought that he just needed me and that he could not bear to be away from me.  You would feel the same way too if you really knew me. 

Then one day my husband (aka “The Genius”), set up blankets and pillows in a slant on our couch and placed our baby on his tummy.  “You’re putting him on his tummy?” I shrieked.  See I told you, "they" had me too.  What did my son do?  He fell right to sleep and stayed that way for two hours.  So we decided to set up the bassinet in our bedroom the same way and he slept the entire night inside of it.  How do I know this?  Because out of utter fear I watched him sleep and I held a baseball bat just in case those “picketers” made their way in.

This is what worked for us, for mommy, daddy and baby.  Now I am in no way encouraging you to make your baby sleep on their tummy, I am simply speaking from my own experience.  Yes I agree that putting a baby to sleep on their back is the preferred method but in my case he preferred his own method and I preferred sleep.

At seven weeks and five days my husband moved our little one from his bassinet into his own room and set him in his crib.  He had configured the crib the same way as the bassinet.  For baby Gavin’s first time sleeping in his crib he slept through the entire night.  To this day, almost fourteen months later, he still sleeps on his belly and I still sleep with one eye open.  I have the monitor volume turned up so high that I can practically hear the springs in the mattress if he moves.  Its okay to get some cuddle time in with your little one but if you really feel like a cuddle go snuggle up with your husband because God knows he feels neglected.