Mama Byrd

Since both of our big kids are at their grandparents’ house for Spring Break, we decided to start “Sleep Training” for Phillip this week. Contrary to popular belief, sleep training doesn’t involve a gym or weights of any kind. It has more to do with getting a baby (and the parents) to sleep all night.

I think Phillip has probably been the easiest of our three kids (knock on wood) to sleep train. Elizabeth was kind of un-trainable. As per usual, she let us know pretty quickly that we were not in charge of when she slept. Caleb, being the first child, suffered the intolerable cruelty of being trained too early. FYI to new parents: as soon as they come home from the hospital is too early to expect your kid to sleep through the night.

At almost six months old, Phillip is a good age for learning to go to sleep and stay asleep by himself. Of course, there are some parents who think it must be cruel to let kids cry at any age and others who think you must be cruel if you don’t train your child to sleep .

Obviously, we’re somewhere in between. We like for our kids to sleep, but we certainly don’t want to be obnoxious about it to other people (remember that irritating episode of Mad about You when Paul and Jamie’s baby cried for the entire episode?).

Long story short, Phillip woke up one time last night and cried for about 5 minutes. No big deal, so far. As with most other things, he’s been the easiest and most compliant of the three kids (knock on wood). I may come back and read this post in thirteen years and laugh my head off for ever thinking that– but I don’t think so.

Filed under: Uncategorized on March 21st, 2006