:: the TRUTH about motherhood: part 2 ::

Part 2 :: Basic Arithmetic

Cameron is turning 3 months old tomorrow. Maybe that’s no big thing to you, but holy cow, time has flown by. He’s discovered his hands and that he can grab things now (the motor skills are a little behind his enthusiasm), he is not interested in things like laying down (sitting up or attempting to stand is all he’ll go for), he smiles constantly, and he “talks” virtually non-stop. It seriously is mind-boggling to me to think that only a matter of weeks ago, he could barely keep his eyes focused on my face when it was 3 inches away. Now he picks his head up and looks around till he finds me when he hears my voice from across a room.

In general, we have to admit that we got a really good baby. I know, I know, most parents say that, right? Ok, but seriously, this kid is happy almost 24/7. It’s honestly rare for him to cry. So rare that we’re getting more afraid by the minute to have any more kids because how could they get any easier and it must have been a fluke that we got one this awesome, right?

He’s been a mostly content baby from the beginning, but the big shift happened a few weeks ago when we discovered a parenting book that was actually worth reading.

Shock.

Our friends Marty and Kyoko have triplets (you’ve probably seen them on the blog header if you’ve watched it for long enough…) and, now that they’re about 18 months old and we have a baby (we admit it, we didn’t pay attention to “baby” things until after we had kids….) we were curious how things like The Nap worked with 3 of them. In the same room. To our surprise, Marty told us that not only do all three kiddos sleep wonderfully, but they don’t complain about naps and will actually ask their parents for naps. WHAT?! How can this be? Marty shared their secret with us – Dr. Weissbluth’s “Healthy Sleeping Habits, Happy Child“.

It was like the heavens parted and rays of glorious sunshine poured onto our lives with angels singing in the background. Almost.

It’s a pretty basic book, but it helps newbies like us learn to recognize drowsy cues in babies, and when/how to react to them. Within 3 nights, Cameron was sleeping through the night. 3 night people. And I’m not just talking 8 hours – he slept 12 hours. BOOM!

We’re hooked.

Now that he’s regularly sleeping 12 hours (8-8 most nights), and taking 2 very good naps (usually 2-3 hours in the morning and 2-3 hours in the afternoon), the world is starting to make some sense again for us.

See what I mean about being afraid to have another kid?

The arithmetic on this method pretty simple, but here are my handy-dandy visual aids:

So moral of the story? Not all parenting books are a waste of time (just most). And anything that results in more sleep for baby (and therefore more sleep for mommy and daddy) makes everyone happier. I like sleep. A lot.

I highly recommend this book to any parents (new, old, prospective, doesn’t matter – he deals with it all in the book…) who also like sleep. The author is a pediatrician and knows his stuff.

Now on to crazier things. Like solid foods and high chairs. Yikes!

::b::