Well, I guess it's not that HUGE, but it is huge for us (and it's a normal baby, non doctor, non heart related post!). Field is a great sleeper - when he's asleep! We cannot get him to learn how to fall asleep on his own. Honestly, he's just full of energy and so very curious about the world around him that it takes A LOT of rocking, swaying, spinning, singing, etc. to get him to finally fall asleep for bedtime and naps. Yikes - sounds like a lot of work, huh? He didn't get the nickname HM (High Maintenance) for nothing! :) I have found that if I can catch his nap early enough - before he is too tired - I can rock him to sleep pretty quickly. He'll usually sleep HARD for about 30 minutes and then he's awake and kicking around. Now I know 30 minutes isn't really considered a nap (I'm reading the sleeping books and this is what they tell me), so I get all stressed and try to rock him back to sleep and he falls asleep, wakes right up, and it just becomes this vicious cycle until the next feeding, which by this time is usually right away! Agh! Well, today, our usual routine happened. Fed Field, held him upright, played with him for about 20 minutes (have to hold upright due to reflux), and then took him to his room to rock him to sleep for his nap. He went right to sleep and slept 30 minutes and then was awake and kicking around. I was eating lunch and pumping at the time and was just kind of annoyed that he woke up already. Due to the fact that I was eating and pumping, there was no way I could rock him to sleep at that point in time, so I just put his paci in his mouth and let him lay there and kick around in his crib. I went back in to check on him after about 15 minutes and he was sound asleep! He didn't cry or fuss or anything! I'm telling y'all, this is HUGE for us. Probably normal stuff for most of you out there with babies, but my little HM here doesn't ever go to sleep on his own so I was thrilled that he did today. We are going to keep working on getting him to fall asleep by himself, but somehow the "cry it out" method doesn't sit well for my heart baby. If any of you heart moms have suggestions on how to get my little heart baby to sleep without going through the "crying it out" stage, I'd love to hear it.
