The Best Book Ever

Our Clay is a healthy 7-month-old baby and yet he was still getting up at about 3am every morning. I realized that I was going to have to do something because I was turning into a real grouch (as Jer will attest). I need my 7 - 9 hours of sleep. So, I broke down and bought a book since nothing I'd tried previously was working. As I read, I realized there was a lot of stuff I was doing wrong that no one had told me not to do. Such as: Nursing Clay to sleep, laying him down in his crib already asleep, letting him stay up til whenever he felt like, not having him on a steady schedule. I had my work cut out for me, but for the last 5 days I've: Erased his nursing/sleeping connection by feeding him his bottle as soon as he wakes up instead of right before he's about to go to sleep; putting Clay down in his crib awake and letting him get himself to sleep (it's taken some tears, but he's getting really good at it!); putting him down for the night between 7:30pm and 8pm; and getting him on a set sleep schedule. I can already tell he's happier on the schedule. He's full of energy when he gets up and - here's the kicker - already sleeping 11-12 hours through the night! Hooray! I wish I had known all this stuff earlier, but at least Cristin's baby (and our next ones) will benefit from my learning experience. And maybe it'll help some of you who read this. Yay for sleeping!