Sleeping Like a Baby

We’re sleep training in our house.

I never knew you had to train someone to sleep. It seems pretty basic to me. You’re tired, you close your eyes, you go to sleep. Simple.

But, apparently, it is not so simple for little ones. Apparently they have to be “trained” to go to sleep.

So, I’ve been reading up on this phenomenon…the Ferber method, the cry it out method, the no-crying method. All have good ideas. But I’ve settled on a new one…the Alexander method.

He has always been a pretty good sleeper and has been sleeping through the night for about a month now. The problem is in getting him to go to sleep. Alexander has been a cuddly baby from birth and enjoys being held, which is sweet and wonderful. And he most likes being held while he sleeps, which was fine when he was a newborn and there was a steady stream of people into our house, clamoring to hold the baby. But, now he is 3 months old. And he weighs 15 pounds. And he still wants to be held while sleeping. And I’m all by myself during the day. You see the problem.

We’ve got our bedtime routine down. It’s naps that are giving us some difficulty. This is partly my fault. He has gotten dependent on his bouncy seat and only wants to nap in it, with me bouncing it with my foot. But, as I said before, he is 15 pounds and quite long and is rapidly outgrowing it, so he has to learn to take naps in his bed.

For some reason, the bedtime routine doesn’t translate to naptime. So I’m doing my best…rocking him until he’s drowsy, putting on lullabies, closing the blinds, unplugging the phone. If I get 30 minutes here and 30 minutes there, I count myself lucky.

And my husband wonders why he comes home some days and I’m still in my pajamas. Didn’t I have all that time to get stuff done while Alexander napped?

Yeah…right.