Hush, my little baby!

The other day I somehow wound up in a bookstore, surrounded by books on babies about attachment parenting, breasts versus formula, and an array of ways to make your own baby food. The lady beside me, sporting a fairly large bump, smiles at my little one in the stroller. We make small talk about age, weight, delivery and everything else baby related, and she sheepishly asks "Is he a two hour baby, or a four hour baby? I'm already exhausted, I can't imagine staying awake even more at this point". I smile and inform her that he's not too bad, and pointed out the enormous section of books devoted to infant sleep strategies. "You have to teach a baby to sleep, I'm told. He'll get there someday, but he's doing incredible! ". Should have bit my tongue, because that night he was trying to make a liar out of me.

People like me with sensitive souls could never allow the "let him cry it out" method. I couldn't bare it. Child experts are never in between, either. I feel like every book I have read, every article, every seminar, and every word-of-mouth has been entirely one end of the spectrum or the other. No happy mediums. "Oh, after a couple of nights he'll just fall right to sleep". After..a..few..nights? I wouldn't, couldn't, and won't! Nor do I think anybody in our household would appreciate letting him sit there and be unhappy. His pinkie is quite strong, seeing as all the hundreds of pounds he has wrapped around it.

Time to research more on sleep! I've read, and learned after multiple readings that babies have a full process of getting to sleep. Light sleep, into deep sleep. There's a 20 (ish) minute span where your baby twitches, smiles and fidgets where you assume they are out cold and perhaps dreaming about something sweet (I insist Kaiden is dreaming about me!), but they are in fact in that crossroad of falling asleep and still being awake. If my baby is not left laying in arms for that 20-30 minute interval, and he's put down.. he will cry bloody murder, and the ritual starts all over again. I was finding that after a few days, even after that thirty to sometimes even forty minute resting period of no movement (on my end), as soon as he would be put down he would become alert, start stretching, and minutes later be very unhappy with his family.

So we started the bath-before-bed technique. After a few days of inconsolable crying, and me having to resort to putting him in his car seat/stroller and pushing him around the house (only thing that would make him doze off!), my mother and I came to the conclusion that he really loved his bedtime bath, and feeding, and he'd be out like a light. It's working marvelously thus far.. however, we're both terrified that if we stray in any way, shape, or form from that routine, back to the basics.

We may be giving this kid a bath every night with Lavender Johnson's baby products until he's 13. I'm hoping against it, but ready and willing!