Sleeping

Michael and I have always said that when Parker turned 6 months we would try to work on teaching him to sleep through the night by learning to fall asleep on his own and sooth himself. We have a ton of baby books and all of the advice in the world from family and friends. We decided to follow the 'Ferber Method' we read about in our Baby 411 book. IT WORKS! It has only been a few days however so far it's been working. For example, last night around 9pm we laid Parker down in his crib (without his pacifier, but gave him a little stuffed soft doggy..similar to mommy's!). He cried for about 5 minutes, we went in the room told him we loved him and closed the door again. He fell asleep within about 10 minutes. He slept until about 3:30am at which point he began to cry. We waited 5 minutes, Michael went in his room, told him we loved him and that everything was going to be ok and closed the door. We set the timer for 10 minutes (that's part of the method). We didn't even make it to 10 minutes. He fell back asleep within about 7 minutes and slept until 7:30am. We are hoping that by Sunday night he sleeps all the way through the night. Each night since we started this he has slept more and more and is learning to sooth himself rather than mommy and daddy coming in to rock him back to sleep or pop the pacifier back in his mouth. It's been a challenge for me especially because I hate hearing him cry and I enjoy rocking him to sleep but I know this is only helping everyone to get a better night's sleep and helping Parker learn new things.

The picture here is of him taking a nap holding his doggy. He has had 2 naps today and both times we laid him down in the crib, he grabbed for his doggy, rolled over on his side and fell fast asleep.