Changes are afoot

Lauren has been in the habit of sleeping with us, and she's got us trained that she only wants to be right next to us, or in our bed without us, but not in a bassinett, crib, or playard. This works out great on vacation, we don't need to pack a special bed for her. But as you might imagine, 3 of us on one bed can get a bit tight. To the point that this morning when she woke up at 5:45 and wanted to talk and play, once I finally got her back to sleep (nursing, does the trick every time. Even if she just ate!) then I had to go and get a sleeping bag out of the guest room and sleep on the floor next to her because she'd sprawled out and I didn't want to move her and wake her up. This bought me another hour of precious sleep.

I'm reading some books about children and sleep. Evidently us putting her to bed at 9:30 every night is bad, or at least the guy who wrote the book I'm reading now (I'll link to it later, too lazy now) seems to think it's too late. (But she WANTS to go then, and if she's put down earlier, she just plays or fusses and won't sleep until that magic hour) He says if you put the child to bed at say, 8:00, she will sleep for 12 hours or so. And there is more, about phasing 2 naps into one, cumulative effects of sleep loss, etc. All a bit Ferber-tastic to me, (he advocates letting them cry it out) but I'll read a few more books and condense the ideas and make some changes.


Word on the street is that once she starts solid foods (on Halloween we plan to!) she'll be so full and tired she'll just crash anywhere, even in her crib, and sleep through the night, or at least that's been the experience of our Danish friends. Right now she wakes up 2 or 3 times but I just lean over, put her pacifier back in or feed her, and she goes right back to sleep.

Then again some people are big on the whole family bed concept. I'm not sure about it, but I do know if we go that route, well we need a bigger bed than queen sized! And it would be a platonic bed, hence a natural birth control. No wonder babies like it, it prevents making their brothers & sisters!