Unicorn Fluff

So this sleep book...the one about unicorns and kittens and rainbows and slumbering babes....it's still annoyingly upbeat and positive while our nights are not so much.

But it's actually really illuminating.

In the grand scheme of sleep issues, ours are minimal. To be frank, the reason I even started modifying the routine is because I want to be able to deal with the sleep-issues surrounding the upcoming (HA!) arrival of our second son without dealing with Little Bug, but I wanted to give myself months to deal with this transition to avoid having him just cry it out and keep me up more than he is. My selfish goal is to be able to have him go to sleep by himself and stay there all night long. I want that for him, of course, but even more, I don't want to be dealing with two crying babies on my own. I'd like to be able to deal with them at night in an orderly and smooth way.

Rainbows, unicorns, dancing fairies.

And as much as I like the warmth of my baby in my bed, my husband's chest is pretty warm the 3 nights a week I get to share a bed with him....and yeah.......I'd like that back, too.

Ahem.

So this sleep book. It claims that there is a certain amount of sleep most children inherently need each night. It states that if your child is getting wiggy around bedtime, instead of saying "Oh, poor Little Bug is starting to get tired" and going on with your evening, you should just put your kid to bed.

Kid is tired = parent should put kid to bed. No matter when the botanical garden closes.

Rocket . Science.

Sadly, this no brainer statement really hit home for me. Little Bug's 8 pm bedtime was arbitrarily chosen because it worked for my schedule and he seemed to do fine with it.....minus the 30 minutes beforehand when he would start sucking him thumb and whining. I just thought that was what kids did in the evening; it never connected with me that I might be keeping him up past the time his body inherently wanted to be up.

Another instance of "I'm a first time mama and have no idea what I am doing" with a healthy dose of "I'm being unintentionally selfish and inflexible."

Sigh. I hate you, book.

So this week I've been watching Little Bug in the evenings to monitor his mood and when he starts to go down. A few nights ago, when he started to get fussy and whiny, I just started his bedtime routine early and put him to bed.

He was deeply asleep 30 minutes before his "bedtime."

And mama is a believer.

It's going to be an adjustment for us all. As a working mama, my evenings are so precious with my son, and I am going to be giving some of that up. We've still not even attempted anything serious with the going to sleep alone or staying in bed during the night or the waking up during my morning showers and pounding on the door while sobbing "baf, Baf, BAFFFFFFFF" pieces of our life, but those will come. I also know that every kid is different and that what is working for my kid would never work for another kid, including Little Bro.

Kids are lame and awesome like that.

So although this book is just a big pile of unicorn fluff, it is giving me a new way to view my child and how much of his routine I can attempt to control, which has been very illuminating.

And possibly the stuff of unicorns, kitten, and rainbows....we shall see.