Super Dad to the rescue!

"I kind of feel like a hero," exclaimed Matt, surprised at himself. Here's the story:

Matt and I were working on sleeping skills with Claire, and we let it go a bit too far. Everyone I've talked to and all the books say that you just have to let your little one "cry it out" to learn how to fall asleep on their own. Well, Claire is not a 'bad sleeper.' Usually we just swaddled her and if she was sleepy, put her down, replaced her pacifier if it fell out, and let her fall asleep on her own.

We began to question ourselves when she woke up in the night a few times, not hungry, but just to be cuddled back to sleep. So we tried the "Ferberizer" method (I think that's the name, Ferber thought this up.) of letting her "cry it out." It's five minutes of crying and one minute of reassuring, then leaving, followed by five minutes of crying...you get the picture. Well, Claire didn't like this, and she got MAAAAAAAAD! We tried this for forty whole minutes, which one would think would be enough time for a little girl to get the hint that we're not picking her up. Well after that much time had passed, we finally did pick her up, cuddled her, rocked her, shushed her, etc., but she was so mad none of this even helped. Miss Claire is a STUBBORN little girl!!! (Hmmm, two first born parents who are the same way...wonder where she got that?) I'm thinking a trait like being strong-willed must be innate in the nature vs. nurture debate. Anyway, finally nursing helped a little, enough to calm her down so that we were able to help her back to sleep eventually. To sum it up...Claire won this battle.

So back to Super Dad. We've decided that "Ferberizing" isn't for us, after all each child is different; and so we are reverting to our old method. However, since this war a few days ago, she's been extra touchy going to sleep. (How long will she remember what happened?) I was trying and trying to get her calmed down for bed and was having no luck at all. In walks Super Dad, who takes over and has her down and asleep in no time. Matt walks out and says to me after a few minutes of Claire sleeping, "I kind of feel like a hero."

And he is. And there will be plenty more opportunities for him to prove it over the coming years I'm sure. :)