Sleep!

The past three days I've woken to light streaming through the window. My first instinct has been to race to Tate's room to check on him, only to find him slumbering peacefully in his crib. Yes, our baby is SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT. Since this marks the first time I've gotten more than 3-4 hours of sleep in a row in 2011, it definitely calls for the use of all caps. I'd love to say it was the result of one of the sleep books I've been slowly ploughing my way through, but it's actually due to one that hasn't been written yet called "Hey Mom, Did You Ever Think Maybe I'm Just Hungry?" Seriously. I was in the middle of an internal struggle about whether to employ the popular (and apparently effective) cry-it-out method of sleep training when I came across a feeding chart my sister had given to me. Even accounting for the fact that Tate started solids a little later than some, he wasn't eating nearly what the chart indicated he should be for his age. So I doubled up the cereal at his next meals and added an additional cube of fruit and bingo, sleeping through the night! I've been reading a little more about attachment parenting (which surprisingly seems to be a philosophy that appeals to me), and one of the things that stood out was that crying is viewed as communication, not manipulation. In this case Tate was apparently trying to tell us that he needed more food!