Bedtime and other stories

Sorry my friends, this post is long overdue.  We conquered sleep training S about 2 months ago, and wow, what a difference uninterrupted sleep makes to one's quality of life!  For the uninitiated, there are tons of books on sleep training methods and quite a debate about how to get one's child to sleep through the night.  I have to confess that we did not actually subscribe to a particular method, nor did we actually sleep train him... we just got lucky!  S slept better at night as a newborn than later on, but I just dealt with it.  I figured getting up once or twice a night with a baby was par for the course.  We had tried to sleep train him in February, but after 1-2 weeks of a whole lot of crying and no one getting any sleep, I decided it was easier to give in and have quiet, calm nights (albeit with interruptions to my sleep) than the alternative. Finally, after S's first birthday, M decided it was time to move the crib to the baby's own room and get him sleeping through the night in it.  I steeled myself for a whole lot of drama, but agreed it was time;  M was going to do the heavy lifting while I had to make myself ignore S's cries and not intervene.  What happened you ask after all this psyching myself out?  We had one night of struggle during which S woke up 3 different times and went back to sleep after being soothed and picked up by daddy.  And ever since then, we have had uninterrupted sleep!!!  Yes, I call that just getting lucky!  Every now and then he wakes up at night and we hear a noise or two through the monitor, but he manages to fall asleep fairly quickly on his own.  He wakes up at varying times in the morning, some earlier than others, and we will work on that as he gets older.  But for now, I'm so appreciative of getting good sleep.

Conquering baby's bedtime means we have time to pursue our own stories, so to speak.  I've been reading lots of books, and am so happy that becoming a mom did not mean I had to forget one of my favorite pastimes of reading.  We have also been watching movies and getting through our Netflix queue instead of wondering if we should cancel our membership.  M has recently taken up efforts to conquer MarioKart on the Wii.  It's been a pleasant change all around.