Babysitting today for the giggle baby. The one who loves to see me dance, and will just giggle at me for no reason. I laugh back and then we're off... cracking each other up. He's sweet, smart and absolutely beautiful. BUT the sad thing is he's a light sleeper. He's almost 1 1/2 and his parents go into him when he cries. His mom is trying now, but it's so much harder with an older child.
So he woke up less than halfway into his nap, and his mom doesn't want me to get him when he does that. I understand completely. I also understand that this is the reason I'm here and she's out. It's hard enough listening to someone else's baby cry let alone your own.
There's one thing that I would advise new parents or parents-to-be is to make sure that there is always noise of some sort when you put your newborn child to bed. It would also be to put your baby to sleep (in their crib) before they are asleep. That way you want have to suffer through the tears and heartache of getting your baby to learn to soothe himself to sleep. You also won't have to suffer through nights without rest for you and your child.
note: just re-read this post and it should say "That way you won't have to suffer through....." there's no way that I would mean that you want a baby to cry unneccesarily that's the point of this whole post. So the baby and you won't be crying.
4 comments:
Good advice.
I can't recommend enough a book by Dr Richard Ferber. I did not follow his recommendations exactly but I did use it as a guideline.
The basic premise is that the baby wants to go to sleep but the baby thinks that going to sleep means mommy carrying her. When she wakes up she wants to back to sleep but can’t because mommy is not carrying her.
The trick is to teach the baby that going to sleep means being in the crib.
It was as if the book was written directly for my daughter. Your mileage may vary but within 1 week my six month old went to sleep without crying for more then 30 seconds. After 2 weeks, she actually wanted to go into the crib when she was tired. She is now 6 and has always been a good sleeper ever since.
Thanks for this advise
i know exactly of what you are talking about we had the same experience
jack,
thanks
gaston,
I really liked the book Healthy Sleep Habits Healthy Kids... don't remeber who wrote it, but I highly recommend it. It's not as strict about the crying as Ferber.
anon,
a fellow sufferer...
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