Allen Town: oh.... THE book

Before Luke was born, a friend of mine used to talk about THE book. He knew that when THE book reappeared, it was time to get down to business. It was time to make a change with their child's sleep routine. Well, we got out our "THE book" last week because Luke's sleep hasn't gotten better, but has gone the wrong direction as he's gotten older. He slept through the night for about a month and a half when he was about 1.5 months old but then just decided to stop. It wasn't really a problem though. In general, it was only 1 time that he got up at night to feed and it was a little bit more time that I got to spend with him. In the last few weeks though, it's been more like 3 times. Although it's exhausting for us, the real problem was just that we knew that it was bad for him. We had gotten in the habit of giving him his paci as soon as we heard a peep so that he wouldn't wake all the way up. After he woke up 4 times in one night I decided to take out THE book. That's when I read that although we thought we were helping, at his age it's not what we should have been doing. He knew that when he made any noises that we would come in. So, he started to see us a lot! :)

The solution was to let him cry it out. We hated to do this but THE book reiterated several times why it was important... for him. So, we decided to try it out last Tuesday. We made 4:00 the time that I would go to him for a feeding. He started talking at midnight but that turned into a full cry for 20 minutes. Eventually, he got himself back to sleep. He did the same thing at 3:00. It is such a horrible feeling. He sounds like he is in so much pain but we had to remind ourselves that it's what HE needed. We were so happy when we woke up the next morning and went to get him at 6:30. It was like a little homecoming!

He cried again the next night for 10 minutes at 3:00. Since then, he's slept straight through until 4:00-5:30. His naps have been more spread out and he has started to go to bed a bit later too. There were a few nights that he was sleeping by 5:30 because he was so tired. The whole process was so worth it. That night was horrible but little Luke needed it and we survived. We're just glad that it was only 1 night of crying! (Even though I will admit that I miss seeing him throughout the night...)

Luke is just so much fun. He's rolling and talking like crazy. His official 2nd word is Da-da. He said it for Grandpa Tom last Thursday and Bobby and I heard it this past Saturday. His favorite sound is by far "ba" though. His voice is so fun to listen to. I try to record it whenever I can. Then there's his laugh! oh. my. gosh. Nothing beats it. He still loves his jumper. He'll do it for a really long time and it just doesn't get old-for any of us! Luke is starting to sit-up on his own. He can do it for a minute or two now and is getting better each day.