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August 06, 2007

Accidental Parenting

So me and Yves realized that we were doing some "accidental parenting" meaning we started something with Sienna that we really don't want to become a habit. It seems that Sienna needs a bottle in order to fall asleep for the night. It's not a terrible thing but we would rather she be able to fall asleep on her own. It was very rare that we would be able to put her in her crib or pen and she would go to sleep, even when she shows 'the signs' of tiredness. But the bottle was always magic. We would give her her nighttime bottle, she would drink the majority of it or even all of it and either want more (which she usually would take a couple of sips of her next bottle rendering the rest of the bottle garbage!) and then fall asleep. We would gently lay her down in her crib and then go about our merry business for the evening. On rare occasions, she'll wake up and cry but mostly, she was out for the night.

Last week she started to not take her afternoon naps, which started this whole realization. Then I discovered something called "4 month regression." Even tho Sienna is technically going to be 5 months next week, because she was a month early, it's not surprising that she follows the 4 month developments. Basically, because she is now more aware of things going on around her and her brain is really starting to develop, why would she want to miss out and go to sleep? Can't say that I blame her! So we decided to combat the nighttime problem first since the regression is a phase and she might go back to her afternoon naps. So last night we decided to follow the advice of the Baby Whisperer, who was very helpful earlier. We gave Sienna her nighttime bottle out in the living room and a little before her bedtime. She finished her whole bottle and then I took her into her room and read her a couple of books. She yawned and rubbed her eyes, ooh, signs of tiredness! I put her down in her crib and walked out. She cried. I went back in, picked her up and soothed her and when she stopped crying, put her down. She cried again. I picked her up and soothed her and put her down when she stopped. This went back and forth for about 45 minutes although I thought I had it in the bag twice and had walked out only to have her cry again. Eventually, she went down and didn't cry and fell asleep. Whew! Not too bad for the first night. Tonight shouldn't take as long as last night, according to the Baby Whisperer. We'll see. I didn't feel bad as I didn't let her cry it out and I was confident I was doing the right thing for all of us.

Posted by luluvision at August 6, 2007 12:37 PM

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