Then yesterday, she woke up in my bed and asked why she wasn’t in her bed. It caught me a bit by surprise and I told her I’d brought her into our room when she’d woken up. She told me she wanted to sleep in her bed all night. So last night, she fell asleep once again in her bed. She woke up at 4am and I went in there and asked if she wanted to come back to my room with me. She said no. She needed to pee, and then we cuddled and nursed a bit and she fell back asleep. She woke up again around 7am and it was so bright in her room at that point that I did bring her back to my room (which she was okay with) and she fell asleep again there, cuddling with me, which was nice.

It’s weird for me, not having her in our room. A very small part of me is sad, and I wonder if she feels pushed or replaced in any way (though I can’t think of anything specifically that we’ve said or done that might cause her to think that). I really enjoy having her in the room, and cuddling with her in the middle of the night. I miss waking up next to her in the morning and just snuggling and chatting and giggling for a half hour until one of us needs to get up to pee. We haven’t been able to do much of any of that with a new baby in the room, especially since the baby normally wakes up before her. I know that as Fiona grows and becomes less needy it will be possible again, and then I’ll have two little girls to snuggle and giggle with.

The rest of me is partially excited that she’s showing so much independence all of a sudden. While I don’t really care what other people think, it is always nice to have my opinions and thoughts proven this way. I have been accused of making her dependent and anti-social, neither of which seems to be true at all. I’m glad I trusted myself and Meredith.

I’m also really glad that I’ve never done or said anything to try and push or coerce her into her own room. Though I did occasionally put her in her bed for naps when she still napped, I don’t think I’ve ever so much as mentioned that she could sleep in her bed over night. She hasn’t always been in my bed recently, as we would often start her off in the night in Kris’ side. But she was always welcome to come over to my side if she wanted, and often she did. If she wanted me to cuddle with her, I always did unless Fiona was awake, in which case she could cuddle with Kris or come and lie with me and wait for Fiona to be done nursing. To my knowledge, no one has ever told her that her bed is for big girls or that she’s a big girl now or anything along those lines. I feel really good that this move (if it’s permanent, as I realize it could just be her experimenting and next week she might be back with us), is completely of her own volition.

I guess it’s another one of those bittersweet milestones that seem to come all too quickly.

Related posts:

1. Baby Moon
2. Sleeping Baby
3. Coming Back

Meredith still seems to really enjoy Fiona, though for this past week or so she’s been quite clingy to me. I feel like she’s going through a bit of a mourning period for the relationship we had (where she basically had me all to herself), and it makes me sad sometimes to think that we never will have quite that same relationship again. The last day or two though she seems to be back to more normal and she hasn’t ever seemed to hold any resentment towards Fiona at all, thankfully. She loves to tandem nurse, still likes to hold her, and will come and stroke Fiona’s head or hold her hand while Fiona is nursing or just lying and looking around. She likes to hold her hand in the car seat too. Luckily Fiona seems to be a pretty relaxed baby for the most part, and I’ve been trying to give Meredith lots of time with me to herself. We cuddle and nurse and play games while Fiona sleeps on Kris, and when Fiona wakes up she is quite happy to sit on the potty for a few minutes and then just relax and look around before she starts rooting. So we can give Meredith lots of warning that Fiona will need to nurse soon, and except for once or twice she’s been quite happy to stop whatever she’s doing with me when Fiona needs me. She often will stop and tell me “baby’s turn now, Mama” or “Mimi wait for baby to nurse”.

EC is going amazingly well. I don’t know if it’s because we started earlier (we started with Meredith at 3 weeks old), because Fiona has more clear signals, or because we’ve done it once before (or likely, a combination of all of the above), but we definitely have more “catches” than misses. She’s often in the same diaper all night long and there have been quite a few days where we’ve had her diaperless/coverless most of the day or she’s in the same diaper all day. Actually, the only thing really keeping us from having her diaperless more often are the little tiny squirts that babies do. We put a little piece of terry in her diapers so we don’t have to change the whole diaper each time, but that doesn’t work so well when diaperless. Those are getting less and less already though. She definitely seems to have some control already, and will often go as soon as we hold her over her little potty or the sink and signal.

She is still a great nurser, and was able to nurse side-lying from day one. Kris’ mom, who was out visiting for four days, told me she has one of the strongest sucks of any baby she’s ever known. (And she’s a foster parent, so she’s had a lot of babies in and out of her house.) I have to say though, that I love having a toddler around to nurse. It’s made things so much easier, since I have an overactive let down and oversupply. Meredith was constantly spitting up as a newborn (literally after every nurse in the beginning) and would choke and gag frequently while nursing. Now if I’m overly engorged or feel like my let down is too much, I can have Meredith nurse and take some pressure off. For an idea of how strong my letdown can be though, there have been times that Meredith has had to stop nursing or the letdown has caused her to choke a bit. Most of the time I am still really enjoying nursing Meredith too, though I have to be honest that there are times I wish I could sit down and relax for a minute without having someone attached to my breasts lol.

One unexpected thing is that Meredith seems to have night weaned, literally over night. The night I went into labour she didn’t wake up wanting to nurse even once. Not entirely unheard of, but definitely unusual. Since then, she’s been quite happy to fall asleep in Kris’ bed and normally if she wakes up in the night Kris will cuddle her into him and she’ll fall right back to sleep. Some nights she has asked to nurse, though so far if Fiona is nursing at the time she hasn’t had any problem waiting for Fiona to be done before having a turn herself. We haven’t ever told her she has to sleep on Kris’ side, or that she can’t nurse at night, or anything like that. I’m very careful that I don’t want her to feel like she’s been replaced by Fiona. I have been nursing her to sleep on Kris’ side, or if she falls asleep downstairs I’ll put her to bed on his side, but if she asked to come on my side I would certainly not tell her no. She is pretty flaily in her sleep so I wouldn’t want her next to Fiona, but prior to Fiona her and I often slept back to back anyway since I was so big and pregnant, so I would have no problem doing that. She’s only come into my side with me once since Fiona was born though. Maybe she likes having someone to really cuddle with, rather than being back to back? When I nurse her to sleep at night, if she comes off awake and wants to cuddle to sleep I have been lying with her longer than I did prior to Fiona being born and really trying to get lots of snuggling in before I sneak away.

The other night she asked to nurse to sleep in her bed in her room. It’s the second time she’s asked that. The first time was a few months ago and she still woke frequently in the night to nurse. If she had actually fallen asleep that time, I would have moved her into our bedroom once she was asleep. This time, I’m not entirely sure what I would have done. I think, considering she asked to lie there to nurse with no coercion on our part, that I would probably have left her there, with the monitor on, and if she had woken up in the night gone to her and brought her back to our room. It’s a bit bittersweet to think about though, she’s never not slept with one of us. She didn’t end up actually falling asleep in there either time though. There are no drapes in the room right now and a street light right outside the window so it’s very light in there even when it’s dark out. Not sure if that has something to do with it or not but I do need to get drapes in there.

Anyway, this has gotten long but I wanted to post somewhat of an update. I’ll try and post some pictures sometime in the next few days. Bed time for me now, both kids are sleeping and I should take advantage.

Related posts:

1. Sleeping through the night
2. In her own time
3. Coming Back

Pregnancy is still going so smoothly, I often forget I’m pregnant. I can’t believe I’m in the third trimester already. It’s night and day from last time, when I spent most of the pregnancy nauseous, puking, or with terrible heartburn. I have gotten a little bit of heartburn, but so far nothing major. I also spent a lot more time thinking about being pregnant last time, whereas this time I have a two year old to distract me and life goes on as normal. The baby does move a lot now though, and I definitely love that part. Meredith loves when the baby kicks her while she’s nursing, and will often pop off and talk about how the baby is going to nurse too on whichever breast she’s not on. (I find this really cute, because I’d never mentioned that the baby would need to nurse too. She figured it out on her own.) She’s also started bringing me little bits of food and putting it on my belly and telling me it’s for the baby. I’m really curious how much she’s really internalizing about me being pregnant. Obviously she at least partly gets it, if she’s figuring out things like that the baby will need to nurse. She loves to look at and hold other people’s babies and nurses/potties her own dolls. I guess we’ll see in a few months!

Her room is mostly finished now. She chose blue, and was pretty insistent from the first day I asked her what colour she wanted that it would be blue. Occasionally she would mention purple, but that was rare. I got some blue paint and some purple paint to try out in the room, and was doing the purple paint first and she said “No Mama! No purple. Blue room.” So, blue it was. I’m quite happy with the colours. There’s a little more that needs to be done in there, but it’s coming along. I want to either paint all the trim white, or replace the baseboards with white ones, but the white paint I have is oil-based which isn’t recommended for pregnancy. I have a good friend who’s offered to paint them as a Christmas present, but she’s really busy too so not sure if it will end up happening.

Meredith adores the room. She talks about it all the time and likes to go in and touch the walls. A couple of weeks ago she wanted to nurse in her bed and I wondered if she was going to fall asleep there. She didn’t, but I wonder what I would have done if she had. Likely brought her back into our bed with me. She still rarely sleeps through the night so I prefer her to be with me where it’s easy to just nurse or cuddle her back to sleep. Plus she still wakes up and looks for me, even if it’s just to wake up briefly to put her hand on me. If I’m not there she will wake up the whole way and call for me. I think I may start putting her down in her room for naps though if she seems interested.

Speaking of sleep, I’m pretty comfortable where we are at as far as night nursing. In the beginning of the pregnancy she always had to nurse back to sleep; sometimes it would take her 45 minutes or longer each time. I worried that with a newborn who would likely wake her up each time he/she woke up, both would want to be nursed back to sleep every single time. I really didn’t want to night wean her though. I opted to try for plain old honesty. When she is settling in for a long nursing session in the night and I am really tired or the nursing is uncomfortable or painful (which luckily for me hasn’t happened often), I will ask her to please keep it short this time and then we can cuddle instead. Most of the time, she’s quite happy to just have a quick nurse and then roll over and we’ll cuddle until she’s asleep. The times she nurses longer there’s almost always a reason, such as illness. Prior to pregnancy, she really had never fallen asleep on her own without nursing, now she does quite often. In fact there were a couple of nights where she didn’t ask to nurse at all, and just cuddled into me when she woke up. I think that was the few days my milk dried up and she wasn’t nursing much during the day either. Then my colostrum came in and she’s loving that lol. Back to nursing frequently during the day and usually at least two to three times overnight too.

Anyway, so much for this being a short update post. I do have more to post in the next little while, if I get a chance. I’m still reading lots of blogs. They’re in my RSS feed on my e-mail though and I haven’t commented much lately. But I’m really enjoying reading all the posts and seeing the Christmas baking and crafts being done, and hope to share some of our own holiday activities too.

Related posts:

1. Sleeping through the night
2. Baby Moon
3. In her own time

Things are still moving right along. I occasionally get mild heart burn, but other than that this has still been an extremely uneventful pregnancy. I’m not complaining at all lol. A few more weeks to the third trimester. We’ve pretty much decided on two girl’s names, though we won’t decide which one for sure until the baby’s born probably. Funnily, neither of them were on our list before I got pregnant this time. Boy’s names are once again harder. We have about ten on the “short” list still. That’s better than with Meredith’s pregnancy though, where we could barely get a short list at all that we were both happy with.

I guess I’m nesting. I’m still doing some major decluttering and reorganizing, especially upstairs though over the weekend we reorganized our living room too. It feels much more spacious the way we have it and Meredith’s toys don’t feel so cramped. Her room is starting to actually look fairly empty. I have the change table set up so I can start putting some baby stuff away on it. I need to sand and paint her bed and finish getting rid of the stuff that’s left, but compared to how it looked when I started it’s looking great. I’m not going to post any pictures until it’s done though, the before pictures will be too embarrassing without seeing that I really did get it done. I’m excited about it. We plan to use it as a space where Meredith can keep things she doesn’t want the baby to get into. She can nap/sleep there if she wants but I don’t plan to push her into that at all, I just want her to have the option because she’s such a light sleeper and I’ve read some kids actually prefer their own room with a cosleeping new baby. I may set our crib up there too and if this baby will actually sleep out of arms I have a feeling he/she may end up being put down more often for naps, so that I can spend some one-on-one time with Meredith and won’t have to be constantly asking her to keep her voice down. I haven’t decided about that though, as it would mean when the baby is sleeping she wouldn’t be able to go up there, and I also really loved having Meredith nap in the mei tei on us and didn’t find it too disruptive. But I didn’t have a two year old at the time either. I’m not really a fan of cribs though (we only have it because my mom bought it for us after I told her we didn’t want one), so more likely if baby goes down for naps it will be in our bed like Meredith does now.

I’ll end with a picture from Halloween. My talented friend Kyre made the shirt and it turned out perfectly. (Check out her site to see the gorgeous cake she recently made for a birthday party.) I got a lot of comments on it when we were trick-or-treating and I’m sad I only get to wear it once. Meredith was Nemo, which was perfect for her as she loves the colour orange and she adores fish (it’s her favorite part of the zoo when we go). She loved Halloween and still talks about the candy and balloon she got that day, even though she really doesn’t eat much candy besides Smarties. Kris and I ended up eating most of hers while she chose to eat healthy things like eggs, bananas, and avocadoes, even though we left the candy bucket out. She would open a bag, sometimes have one or two, and then give the rest of it to one of us. I think just the excitement of everything was really neat to her though.

Related posts:

1. Coming Back
2. Baby Moon
3. Sleeping Baby

This has been something that has been on my mind quite a bit the past couple of weeks, since I found out I am pregnant. She still nurses a lot, more than she eats. I’m okay with that. I trust that she will eat when she needs to eat, and that she is getting the nutrition she needs from my breastmilk. She’s growing well, healthy, and happy. She’s not a picky eater, she just doesn’t eat much. I’ve noticed she is starting to eat a lot more recently too. So far, nursing and being pregnant hasn’t bothered me at all. I’m hoping I’ll be one of those people who it never does. I’ve always had problems with oversupply, not undersupply, and last pregnancy I started having to wear breast pads around 22 weeks or I’d leak. (Apparently that’s really early for a first pregnancy.) So I don’t think my milk will dry up, or if it does hopefully it will only be for a short time. One of the reasons we waited to get pregnant (besides my cycles not coming back, ha!) was that I didn’t want her to be forced to wean if I am one of those women whose milk does dry up in pregnancy, especially since she still relies on it so much.

My concern (and even that is far too strong a word at this point; I’m not concerned, just thoughtful) is the night nursing. Meredith is a very light sleeper. When I’m in late pregnancy and tossing and turning, am I going to be waking her up each time? And if so, will I have to nurse her back to sleep every time, making it harder for me to get back to sleep? Trouble sleeping was one of my most annoying symptoms last time and has already started this time. What about after the baby comes? Will the baby wake Meredith up each time he or she wakes up in the night? I can’t side lie and nurse two kids, so that means I’d either have to sit up and nurse them both, or make one wait while I nurse the other. Meredith will be over two and a half, so I’m sure she would be okay waiting while I nurse the baby, but I don’t want to nurse them both every single time the baby wakes up.

Really it’s all conjecture at this point. In 8 months, it’s quite possible Meredith will be falling back to sleep on her own without nursing, or that she will be a heavier sleeper and wouldn’t wake up. But again, I don’t want to count on that, and I don’t want to night wean her. If she sticks to her current sleeping pattern of sleeping until 5 or 6 in the morning, or even waking more when she’s sick/teething, I’d be fine with that with a baby. My concern is having to nurse them both every time the baby wakes up.

Thinking about it, and talking it over with Kris, I think we may try and have her start the night on Kris’ side. We have two queen beds in our bedroom pushed up against each other. (Which is heaven by the way, I love having so much space!) Meredith and I sleep on one, and Kris sleeps in the other. But really it’s like one huge bed because obviously we can move around from one to the other at will. Occasionally Meredith does crawl over to his side for a cuddle. Our thought was that I could nurse her to sleep for the night on Kris’ mattress, and the first time she wakes up at night I’ll bring her back over to my side and she’ll stay there the rest of the night. Which means on the nights she sleeps until 5 or 6 I have space the whole night, and the nights that she is waking up more frequently I would bring her over earlier and be right there for when she needs to nurse. That gives me space to toss and turn when heavily pregnant without risk of waking her up, and when there’s a baby in the equation he or she would be less likely to wake her up too. And of course, if we try it and for some reason she is really unhappy about it, we’d drop it for now. I can’t see that happening though, she does love to snuggle with daddy.

Related posts:

1. Baby Moon
2. Coming Back
3. Sleeping Baby

Sleep training from baby’s point of view

Sleep Training…

OK, here’s my situation. My Mommy has had me for almost 7 months. The first few months were great– I cried, she picked me up and fed me, anytime, day or night. Then something happened. Over the last few weeks, she has been trying to STTN (sleep through the night). At first, I thought it was just a phase, but it is only getting worse. I’ve talked to other babies, and it seems like it’s pretty common after Mommies have had us for around 6 months.

Here’s the thing: these Mommies don’t really need to sleep. It’s just a habit. Many of them have had some 30 years to sleep–they just don’t need it anymore. So I am implementing a plan. I call it the Crybaby Shuffle.

It goes like this:

Night 1–cry every 3 hours until you get fed. I know, it’s hard. It’s hard to see your Mommy upset over your crying. Just keep reminding yourself, it’s for her own good.

Night 2–cry every 2 hours until you get fed.

Night 3–every hour.

Most Mommies will start to respond more quickly after about 3 nights. Some Mommies are more alert, and may resist the change longer. These Mommies may stand in your doorway for hours, shhhh-ing. Don’t give in. I cannot stress this enough: CONSISTENCY IS KEY!! If you let her STTN (sleep through the night), just once, she will expect it every night. I KNOW IT’S HARD! But she really does not need the sleep, she is just resisting the change.

If you have an especially alert Mommy, you can stop crying for about 10 minutes, just long enough for her to go back to bed and start to fall asleep. Then cry again. It WILL eventually work. My Mommy once stayed awake for 10 hours straight, so I know she can do it.

Last night, I cried every hour. You just have to decide to stick to it and just go for it. BE CONSISTENT! I cried for any reason I could come up with. My sleep sack tickled my foot. I felt a wrinkle under the sheet. My mobile made a shadow on the wall. I burped, and it tasted like pears. I hadn’t eaten pears since lunch, what’s up with that? The cat said “meow”. I should know. My Mommy reminds me of this about 20 times a day. LOL. Once I cried just because I liked how it sounded when it echoed on the monitor in the other room. Too hot, too cold, just right–doesn’ t matter! Keep crying!!

It took awhile, but it worked. She fed me at 4am. Tomorrow night, my goal is 3:30am. You need to slowly shorten the interval between feedings in order to reset your Mommies’ internal clocks.

P.S. Don’t let those rubber things fool you, no matter how long you suck on them, no milk will come out. Trust me.

—–

The sad thing is, it seems humourous and silly, until I realize I’ve seen the exact same things said about sleep training babies. (Only, the opposite, they really don’t need to nurse at night, they don’t need your comfort, it’s just a habit, etc.)  I could never stand outside a bedroom listening to Meredith crying for comfort and not go in to her.

Related posts:

1. Children ‘should sleep with parents until they’re five’
2. Dog-Friendly Dog Training
3. Sleeping through the night

Also, I have really loved reading the Unplug Your Kids theme projects and seeing the creative things people come up with, and lamenting that Meredith isn’t old enough to do things like that with. But I think I’m going to try and make an effort to come up with ideas that she will enjoy too, even if I end up doing most of the “work” for them.

One thing I’ve taken up lately that I tend to do while Meredith naps (and thus it takes up valuable blogging time) is digital scrapbooking. I’d like to write a little about that here (and I posted a picture of one recent favorite below too). I’d also like to write about the birth of a friend’s baby that I was lucky enough to be there for. 

I’ve also finally updated my blogroll bar and added a few new blogs that I’ve discovered and have been enjoying. I’ve been reading my favorite blogs daily in my RSS feed, but not actually taking the time to go to them and leave comments. I know how much I love and appreciate any comments I get here though, so I’m going to make an effort to start commenting on other blogs again too.

Elements are from the Country Cottage kit by Ashley Bailey

Related posts:

1. Change
2. 6 Random Things
3. 18 Months!

I came across this article today and thought I would share it. There are so many misconceptions and misinformation about cosleeping, that it’s nice to see an article about the dangers of cribs for once. (Not that I ever want to hear about any babies being harmed, but I’m glad the information is getting out there for parents to see.) I firmly believe that cosleeping, when combined with common sense, is far safer and definitely a more natural way for babies to sleep. (And there is no nicer way to wake up than seeing your child grinning up at you in the morning.)

One of my half-written posts is actually on the joys and benefits of cosleeping (and a rebuttal to some of the “dangers”), but I’ll leave that for another post and just concentrate on cribs for this one. Here is a quote from the article.

Though cribs are designed for a family to leave a baby unattended for many hours at a time, they are the most deadly nursery product. One missing screw, one broken spindle or one loose mattress support can turn a crib into a deathtrap.

It made a good point at the end.

Rachel Weintraub, director of product safety at the Consumer Federation of America, wonders whether crib companies, in an effort to compete on price, have cut corners on designs and materials and failed to institute strong quality-control checks at factories overseas.

“Is the quest to produce lower cost cribs leading to a sacrifice on the quality of the wood and other parts?” Weintraub asks. “They are making their products overseas, so they’re getting the benefit, but they’re not taking additional measures to deal with increased risk.”

With all the attention China has been getting in the news in the last year: adding melamine to their dairy products, lead paint, etc., it wouldn’t surprise me at all if they are also cutting corners when making cribs.

I only wish the article had mentioned cosleeping as a safe and viable alternative to cribs. It’s great to get the information out to parents about how dangerous they can be, since I don’t think many parents realize how many accidents happen every year in cribs, but without giving them alternatives it may not change much.

Related posts:

1. You’ll See…
2. Hi baby
3. Sleeping Baby

Kris’ sister got a very bad burn on her face when she was around Meredith’s age. The doctors told his mom that she would have permanent scars because of it. Kris’ mom used vitamin E oil on it every day and it healed faster than the doctors expected and with no scarring. Maybe it wasn’t the vitamin E oil, maybe his sister just has really great skin (and if so I hope Meredith got her skin), but regardless I think I’m going to pick some up today.

Last night:

This morning:

You can see in the picture how red her nose is. She obviously hit that too though luckily it wasn’t bleeding at all. That picture doesn’t really show how puffy her lip is. The area inside where she bit it is very white. It looks like the world’s worst canker sore.

Things like this make me so glad I still nurse her though. She was sobbing last night, and I quickly cleaned it up a little bit to see how bad it was, gave her Arnica, then started nursing. The nursing calmed her down enough that we could clean it up better while she nursed and get a better picture of whether we should be heading to ER. A lot of people don’t know this, but the act of nursing produces hormones in the baby that act as pain relief. Breast milk has antibiotic properties, so was probably great to help clean the cuts inside and out of her mouth.

Once she was calmer and had nursed her fill, we gave her some frozen blueberries to try and help with the swelling (she wouldn’t let us near it with ice). We ended up giving her some Motrin too, as it was obvious she was still in pain and it was extremely swollen. She slept snuggled into the crook of my arm all night.

Today it doesn’t seem to be bothering her, though it’s still pretty swollen. I wish things like this didn’t happen to our babies.

Related posts:

1. Sleeping through the night
2. Baby Moon
3. In her own time

Meredith is doing great.  It is so amazing to me how much she grows and changes in such a short time.  It’s cliché, but it’s so true, they really do grow up so fast.  If I was ever worried that cosleeping, extended breastfeeding, responding to her needs, etc, would make her overly dependent (and I wasn’t), there are no fears now.  She is turning into a little toddler instead of a baby, and definitely trying to find her independence as she does.  I really savour my nights and her naps cuddling now, since it doesn’t happen much otherwise.  I really feel like we’re being rewarded for giving her room and allowing her to make mistakes and try things on her own, while still being there if needed and for support.  I loved being around Kris’ family this past weekend.  They are all so supportive of how we parent and had nothing but good things to say.

She has had the occasional “tantrum” I guess, but there is always a very obvious reason.  Mostly, she is frustrated about something or tired.  She is down to one nap a day most days now, unless she wakes up really early (really early for us being any time before 8, don’t hate me ), but almost still needs two.  She would nap at 6-6:30-ish most days I think, but then is awake at 8 and won’t go back to sleep until much later.  If we wait until 7:30 or 8 she will fall asleep and be asleep for the night.  I don’t make an effort not to let her sleep earlier than that.  I will nurse her when she wants to nurse or if she seems tired, but we don’t go for our nightly walk until after 7:30 and that is usually how she ends up falling asleep in the evenings.  

Mostly, it’s very easy to see why she’s upset and to work with her to find a solution.  I haven’t found any need to ignore her, even if she’s upset “just” because she wants attention.  I think attention is a valid need, and my husband or I sometimes feel like we want more attention too, and I don’t ignore him to cure him of that.  And I don’t purposely not give her what she wants just to teach her a lesson about tantruming.  I find the conventional “wisdom” about tantrums so silly now that I have my own child.  Working with her is so much easier for all of us than working against her, and quicker too.

I have so much more I want to post about, but it’s (long past) bed time and I didn’t sleep well last night either.  I have some pictures to post later and more specific examples and lots more to say.

Related posts:

1. Sleeping through the night
2. Baby Moon
3. Sleep Training Guide for the Infant