To all the people out there who told me Sadie wouldn’t want to be patted and shushed to sleep forever: You were right. It only took two years and nine months.

A belated Father’s Day ode to Trevor, my partner in:

Crime. Just kidding.
Fun.
Getting shit done around the house.
Making the moneys.
Paying the bills on time.
Keeping Sadie alive.
Keeping Sadie happy.
Changing diapers.
Getting that kid to sleep.
Practicing giving Sadie a sibling (wink).
Watching movies and TV on the laptop in bed.
Eating a whole 12 inch pizza.
Getting through the hard days.
Making fun of ourselves and each other. And maybe other folks, sometimes.
Staying up past bedtime.

Trevor, you are the dish washer to my cooking. Happy Father’s Day, and here’s to many more to come.

Wow. I feel like things have been going a mile-a-minute lately. Here are some ramblings to catch you up (and so I can at least sort of remember what life was like with a 2 year-old Sadie.

Verbal, verbal, verbal. That’s definitely where most of Sadie’s development has been lately. We’ve gone from simple two-word phrases to full-blown sentences and conversations we can actually follow. There are, of course, still many conversations that leave us scratching our heads. We talk A LOT about what is and is not Sadie’s. She really seems to like knowing what she can claim as her own and what is Mama’s or Daddy’s. I’m trying to work in the categories “Sadie’s to share” and “everybody’s.” Her manners are so cute and funny. She says “sorry” a lot, apologizing to us, to her toys, to herself. The other day she started saying, “Yes, Mama.” and “Yes, Daddy.” And, the very best of all, she’s starting to spontaneously say “I love you.” She’ll even say “I love her,” when talking about her toys, puzzle pieces (?) and BFF Margie.

Sadie continues to be very nurturing with her baby dolls and other toys. Thankfully, she’s getting a little better about petting the cats gently. Though, she’s becoming more and more interested in trying to carry the cats around. For their sake, I hope Sadie doesn’t decide the cats need diaper changes like all of her other toys. Here’s a good example of just how far this goes: Last Saturday, I decided we should make some graham crackers. I mixed up the dough and put Sadie in her Learning Tower so she could help roll out the dough and use her little cookie cutters. We did lots of stars, hearts and clovers. Then she found a tiny teddy bear cutter. I helped her cut one out, and she immediately cuddled it to her chest, saying “Awww, sweety bear.” Then the head fell off. We did this a few times, and then she moved on to just cuddling the cookie cutter. Later, I found her in her room asking the little bear if it needed a diaper change. And this morning she was cuddling a fridge magnet letter I. Of course, when she sets off into a bit of a tantrum, it’s not unusual for her to throw any and all toys on the ground with pretty serious force.

Bedtime and sleeping in general continue to be a struggle. She’d gone so long without fighting bedtime, it’s been hard getting back into the swing of helping her get to sleep. She’s still waking up one to three times a night, which is exhausting.

Yes, she is still nursing. I go back and forth on how I feel about this one. Some days, it’s no big deal. Other days, I wish I could just talk her out of it. She has, at least, become much better about handling boundaries I set about when, where, and for how long she can nurse. Nursing a toddler is nothing if not interesting, I can tell you that much. Tonight, when she was nursing before bed, she said, “I nursing. This my nuhnuh?”

Sadie’s been making friends with the kids in the neighborhood, which has been a lot of fun. They come over to play in our yard and on our porch, and Sadie generally enjoys it. Sharing toys on her turf is, expectedly, difficult. But she’ll get there.

Much to my chagrin, she’s watching more “TV” than I thought she would be at this age. Our TV is still in the closet, so she’s actually watching stuff on the little DVD player for the car and on the laptop. You do the best you can, I guess. Most of our book reading these days happens during meals, for some reason. She’s been on quite the streak with the Lorax lately. Sometimes it’s a great way to get her to focus on breakfast. Take a bite, and I’ll read the next page.

She’s got an interesting mix of bravery and fear, which I assume is pretty typical. She’ll put herself into many precarious physical situations without a second thought (using her little rocking chair to reach things that are up high). But then she goes on and on about the turkey she saw three weeks ago and how it scared her. We do our best to take these in stride.

Her much-loved teacher took a new job a couple of weeks ago, and this has been very hard for Sadie. She talks about her just about every day. Drop-off at daycare has become tearful again, which is so very sad for me.

Okay, enough about Sadie! What about the rest of us?

Trevor is doing well. His grandfather passed recently, and Trevor flew to be with his family in Maryland for the funeral services. His grandfather was a dear man who had lived a full life. I am glad to have known him even a little and that he had the chance to meet Sadie this past Christmas. It’s mountain bike race season again, so I’m hoping we can do a little camping with Sadie for a race or two.

I am Busy at work. Busy. And at home, too. I’ve been doing a lot of kitchen “projects,” trying out new recipes in the hopes of eliminating more and more processed foods from our regular diets. Kale chips were a total bust, but I’m going to try these cinnamon-honey roasted chickpeas a second time and see if I can get them a little crunchier. Tonight it’s frozen yogurt! I’ve got the seed planted in my head to do a Parenting from Scratch e-book, if I could ever get myself to set aside time to think/work on it. I’ve recently discovered Glee on Netflix. I know, right? Whatever. What I desperately want is a family vacation. But it doesn’t look like that’s in the cards for us this summer. Ugh. I am scheduled to finally (!) have my wisdom teeth removed in two weeks. Good riddance, I say.

The animals are mostly good. We lost a chicken a few weeks ago. As in, she literally vanished. I had a horrible nightmare about her last night. SCARY CHICKEN.

I took Sadie to Riverfest this weekend, which was a good mix of fun and crazy. Sadie really liked the drums. And I got to introduce her to my formerly annual favorite, Filipino barbeque shish-ka-bobs. Sadie also had a blast watching the various performances, especially the gymnastics. I’d have taken photos of that, but I was so busy trying to keep her off the stage.

Meet Sadie’s new, 7 month-old baby sister, Too Big Baby. Sadie insisted on taking Too Big Baby home with us from my sister’s house Sunday night, and they’ve been attached on my at the hip ever since. This baby is too big! In some ways, it’s hilarious. The adorable sounds Sadie makes when she’s trying to hoist Too Big Baby up when she holds her. How she says, “hebby” when the burden is too great to bear. Let me tell you, though, this is one awkward baby. Trevor and I have both had the joy of carrying Sadie AND Too Big Baby around Sadie’s dark room, because there’s no way Sadie’s putting her down. She’s been hauled to and from the car (Miraculously we’ve been able to convince her Too Big Baby needs to stay in the car for a nap when we’re out around town), fed bottles, read to. I made the mistake of covering Too Big Baby up during Sadie’s “nap” yesterday, only to hear, a few minutes later, desperate cries for HELP! Too Big Baby’s blanket had come off, and Sadie couldn’t get it back right. On the up side, I’ve yet to have to change Too Big Baby’s diaper or nurse her. I don’t know how I’ve managed so long.

Of course this is all tongue-in-cheek (for the most part–she really is big and heavy). It still brings me enormous joy to see my baby caring so much for all of her babies. I do wish she wouldn’t hit them…

And, hey, I guess this kind of gives us some practice for whenever Spawn II comes around.

But, y’all, it’s only Tuesday!

At about 6:00 Thursday morning, I nursed my first babydoll. I’d been wondering when it was going to happen, and figured it was bound to at some point, with Sadie still nursing and with her growing attachment to her babydoll.

Sadie got her first babydoll for Christmas last year from her Mimi and Papa. She instantly loved it, and we were surprised by her enthusiasm at such a young age. She’s definitely had spans of time where her interest isn’t quite so intense, but for the most part, Sadie is a babydoll kind of girl. (I, on the other hand, was not. Sure, I had a few Cabbage Patch dolls, but I was SO much more interested in Barbie. I didn’t want to change diapers; I wanted to go out on dates.)

As Sadie has grown and learned and observed more and more, her relationship with Baby (as she calls her) has matured. Sadie now frequently insists that we swaddle (SWA!) Baby. She loves to rock her, to pat her, and to shush her. She requests “Rock-a-Bye Baby” be sung while she rocks Baby multiple times a day. It’s really been a joy to see Sadie love her Baby so much, because I feel like it’s a genuine reflection for the love we’ve been pouring into her for the past 19+ months.

Thursday morning, though, a change took place. Of clothes, that is. On Monday, I’d picked up some dresses and outfits from Sadie’s Mimi for Sadie to wear this winter and next spring. These are mostly handmade clothes that have been worn by girls in our family for many years. Well, there was one that didn’t have a hanger, and somehow it ended up in Sadie’s hands. She brought it, and Baby, to me and indicated that she wanted Baby to wear it. The end-of-the-day report from Aunt Gwen (who Sadie still calls “Girl”–too cute!) was that Baby was an integral part of Wednesday. They had done everything together.

Ever since I read this hilarious essay, Nursing Johnny Depp, I wondered if my time would come to nurse something other than Sadie. I mean, with an old enough nursling, surely it happens at some point. So it wasn’t ALL that surprising when, early Thursday morning, Saide said “nuh nuh, Baby” and put Baby to my breast so Baby could nurse, too.

I wonder if this will become a trend. And I wonder who or what else I’ll be asked to nurse.

At the very least, I guess I can take it as a slightly hopeful sign that Sadie would, if the time came, be willing to share the Nuh Nuhs with a REAL baby.

In other Nuh Nuh news, Saide is also beginning to generalize my breasts with other breasts. It first started by her pointing at one of my bridal portraits. Specifically, my boobs. “Nuh Nuh!” she said. Yes, those are Nuh Nuhs. (This is the ONE body part I am temporarily using a made-up word for. It started out as a verb; now it is both verb and noun.) But there have been other times recently she has pointed to a photograph of another woman and said, “Nuh Nuh!” Yes, those are also Nuh Nuhs. Let’s just hope this one doesn’t come back to embarrass me.

She’s also got an incredible memory for the Nuh Nuhs. While at the Memphis Zoo a few weeks ago, a mama giraffe was nursing her baby. I couldn’t resist, so I held Sadie up and said, “Look, Sadie, the baby giraffe is having Nuh Nuhs!” Now, every time she sees an image of a giraffe, she says, “Nuh Nuh.” Oops.

For the most part, the fact that I never get around to posting hasn’t meant too much. In other words, although Sadie is cutely chugging along through toddlerhood, most of the things in our lives are pretty much the same.

Well, there are actually a couple of things that I’ve wanted to write about, but haven’t gotten around to doing it, so now you can have them at once, because they’re kind of related.

First! Trevor’s lovely sister, Gwen, has recently moved to Little Rock. As in, she arrived Wednesday night and is going to be living in our garage apartment! This is awesome on many levels. One, Trevor will finally have an immediate family member within hollerin distance. His family is pretty tight-knit, so it’s been a big deal for him to be so far away (Have I mentioned that I hijacked him to begin with?) Two, Gwen and I really get along well. We’re actually closer in age than Trevor and I are. So it’s like having a fun friend living in the back yard. And three, we are going to be taking Sadie out of daycare, and Gwen will be keeping Sadie at home four days a week. Needless to say, we are all very excited. Of course, you’d never know it in person, because I think Trevor and I might be the least outwardly excitable people alive.

Gwen and the Sadiebug.

P.S. Gwen comes as a package deal with her dog, Omie, who looks like Nari’s cousin and will be a great addition to the pack once she calms down a little about the cats (Sadie suddenly decided that the cats are now “Cats!” and not “Kitties!” the other day.)

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Second! Tomorrow, I am leaving for a very exciting, pretty selfish vacation to Orlando. My college roommate and I are celebrating her graduation from pharmacy school (amazing) by going to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (and also the rest of Universal Islands of Adventure and one of the Disney parks). OMFG, I am so excited about this. We made these plans when Universal first announced they were going to open the WWHP… back before Sadie was even a sparkle in my eye (gag).

Leah and me in our glory days of youth.

So… Sadie is staying home. The plans were back and forth for a while about whether or not she’d come with us, and it ended up working out logistically best for her to stay home with Trevor. This will be made possible, too, by Gwen’s presence. I am all kinds of mixed up about this emotionally. She’s too young to understand that “I’ll be back in a few days” doesn’t mean “I’m never coming back.” She’s not weaned in the slightest. I recognize that this might be a total disaster for everyone involved who isn’t going to Orlando… and I’m really nervous about it. This is probably the least Attachment Parenting thing I’ll have ever done. But. I’m going. It’s happening. Everyone will survive. Just some of us will have more fun than others (and this is usually not me, so that’s probably why I’m having such a hard time wrapping my head around it). I’m ridiculously grateful to Trevor and Gwen. And to Leah.

I learned two valuable lessons from Sadie Diane tonight.

First. Never put an enraged toddler to the breast. She will bite. You will bleed.

Second. Don’t confuse informed force with providing options. It may lead to rage.

To explain the second lesson (I assume the first is pretty self-explanatory), allow me to tell you the story. See, for months now, bedtime at chez Edwards has been a pretty easygoing, nonviolent affair. We’re pacifists, after all. Enter the toy cell phone. (Sadie has very few noisy toys, but she’s been increasingly desperate to play with our phones. She’s not the most careful with things, so I thought the time had come to go ahead and get her a little flip phone, and I did just yesterday. To say that she loves it would be an understatement.) Now, normally I’ve got a keen eye for ridding her room pre-bedtime of any toys that might cause her trouble winding down. Guess I missed one.

Oftentimes, like when she’s playing in the driver’s seat, but it’s time for her to get in her car seat, I’ll give her two options. She can climb into her car seat on her own, or I can help her into it. Much of the time, she chooses to do things herself. And she seldom makes a big deal if I “help” her.

As it turned out, this little tidbit of parenting wisdom does not apply when trying to get Sadie to hand over a still-new, awesome, noisy toy at bedtime. Not surprisingly, she elected not to give up the phone. So, I took it. By brute force. Because I’m the mama. Because I could.

Screams, tears, fit of rage.

Enter: Trevor. Unable to calm her down.

Exit: Trevor.

Enter failed attempt at breastfeeding as a calming technique, only to result in a bleeding boob: Here.

Enter swearwords yelled at top of lungs: Here.

Re-enter: Trevor, armed with his own phone. Rejected. Sent back for play phone.

Now, you might be thinking, Oh, jeez, you caved in, and her tantruming won. Not so, I believe.

While all of this was going down, my mind was racing through what had happened and what my remaining options were. What I realized was, I hadn’t genuinely presented Sadie with a choice to make. That tool (trick?) only works if she’s actually open to one of the choices.

So we started over. I pulled Sadie into my lap and let her play with the phone until she’d calmed down. Then, I told her it was time to put the phone nite-nite, and that she could not nurse until she had put it away. For the next 10 minutes or so, we went back and forth about the phone. Sadie would take it to her table, but kept coming back with it. We told the phone goodnight; we gave it goodnight kisses. I started working on getting Sadie interested in one of her baby dolls. I patted it’s back; I sushed it. Finally, Sadie had set the phone on the table, and I saw my opening. I made a crying sound and told Sadie that her baby was ready to sleep. She came right over, without the phone. She nursed, I put her to sleep, and I haven’t heard a peep from her since (knock on wood).

I think the important thing is this: I knew Sadie wasn’t taking that phone to bed. I had two options–I could either continue on with the “I’m the boss” tactic, and she could worn both of us out in the tantrum. Or, I could put a little of the power back in Sadie’s hands. She left the phone behind, but she did it on her terms.

I think we both won, and I feel a touch wiser from the experience. Of course, you can bet your sweet ass I’ll make sure that phone is way out of sight before tomorrow night. And every other.

So, last Thursday morning (What is it with Thursdays lately?), right when I was about to leave for work, I went into Sadie’s room and discovered this (this is taken a few minutes later):

Yep, Sadie’s crib rail split. We’re not sure if one of us did it, putting Sadie back in sometime in the course of the night. Or if we need to be concerned that The Company is going to come looking for Sadie. Either way, suck-ola. So! I might have been a little hasty when I commanded, TAKE THE DAMN THING APART! I could just imagine Sadie busting through it that night, or gouging her eye out on the jagged wood (and I use the term “wood” lightly here). Sadie thought it was fantastic (say CHEESE):

How fun to have her bed on the floor! I’d been thinking off and on about transitioning Sadie to a low bed, especially since hearing a friend of mine talk a little about what she’d learned about low beds in the Montessori tradition. I definitely hadn’t quite planned on doing it yet, and I really had wanted to be slow and deliberate about it (as I was moving her from the bassinet/our bed to the crib/our bed to just the crib). But I’d just heard how good Sadie has been sleeping on her cot at daycare, so I figured, what the heck. We’ll give it a shot.

So I mulled this over on my way to work. And the whole morning, I kept thinking of how not-entirely-baby-safe Sadie’s bedroom was. Sure, she could hang there unattended for a while with one of us in the house, awake. But the thought of her roaming her room in the middle of the night, with a diaper pail to get into and who knows what else… So, I took the afternoon off. I did a tiny bit of shopping and found at an antique store a little table and stool that seemed just the right size for Sadie. I rearranged furniture and cleaned the floor. I was actually getting a little excited.

I took out most of her toys and left behind just a handful. The Montessori concept as far as sleeping goes is that all children, even babies, shouldn’t be restricted in their movement–night or day. I was prepared that Sadie would likely wake up in the night, as she does in her crib. But I kind of imagined Sadie getting up, playing with a puzzle or baby doll, and then putting herself back to sleep.

I was obviously out of my gourd. That night was a total train wreck. I’m sure that if you start your baby from infancy in a low bed, having a night like we had happens every so often. It took me nearly two hours to get Sadie to sleep, eventually letting herself wear down by running from the low bed to me and back, again and again, nursing every handful of laps. She slept soundly from 9:00 to 3:30 in the morning, but then she was up! Up. As in, took Trevor and me until 5:15 to get her back down. Not okay. And the way we got her back to sleep? Trevor rearranged the room halfway back to how it was and put the crib back together. He duct taped the split part and put that part against the wall. Not exactly ideal, and I’ve got some phone calls to make to see about a replacement part. Some of my work has stayed, though. We all really like the table and stool and the dressing area. Sadie can pick out what she wants to wear, and she even will put her shoes back when she’s not wearing them. She’s definitely a big girl, but I think we’re going to wait quite a bit longer before trying the big girl bed again.

Does anybody have any tips on how to make this transition easier next time? I’m sure just her being developmentally more ready will make a big difference. But I’d love to hear some success stories.

As you know, we’ve been back-and-forth some (okay, a TON) over Sadie’s sleep. Well, I am happy to report that things are still going swimmingly. Even in the face of some major teething. Sure, there are nights like Tuesday where she wakes up a few times for a little cuddle and some teething tablets. But more often that not, Sadie goes to bed between 6:15 and 6:45 pm, wakes up to nurse around 5:30, and is up for the day around 6:30. AWESOME.

One of the blogs I follow is API Speaks, which is the blog of Attachment Parenting International. I would consider what Trevor and I are doing, for the most part, to be Attachment Parenting. There was a post recently, however, that I think highlights a need in many parenting styles, and that’s flexibility (something my Aunt Margie would say is NOT my strong suit). I hope you’ll go on over and read the post and that you’ll chime in on the discussion over there, over here, or both.

Here’s my response:

I think there’s a gray area that doesn’t get talked about enough in Attachment Parenting conversations. And that is what to do with your older baby who actually DOES need more sleep than she’s getting. There’s so much talk about how we shouldn’t “sleep train” our babies in order to satisfy our own needs for sleep. And I agree with that. I signed on to parenting and all the nitty-gritty that comes with it. I also agree that infants, especially those who are breastfed (and of those, especially ones with working-out-of-the-home mothers), may need to wake up often to eat throughout the night.

But a 12+-month-old very well may have different needs. A toddler who sleeps no longer than two or three hours at a time has a problem. It’s called sleep deprivation. Think about how hard it is to go about our daily lives on low-quality sleep. Sometimes we’re groggy, we’re grouchy, we’re sloppy. Most of the time, it’s not that big a deal. You can grocery shop on auto-pilot. But what if you’re learning to walk? And what if you’re learning your first language? These are some TOUGH things to learn, and being groggy, grouchy and sloppy HAS to make it harder.

I believe that the intensive nighttime parenting we did for our daughter was the right thing to do. We co-slept when it made sense; we never left her to cry. I believe it laid a strong foundation for her to know that sleep is good and safe, and that her parents are nearby when she needs them. I also believe, however, that the time had come for a change. Sure, I’ll admit the prospect of getting to sleep through the night sounded awesome for myself. It also felt like something my daughter truly needed. More than she needed hourly check-ins with her dad or me.

I’ve been practicing Attachment Parenting in all the ways that it fits my family since before my daughter was born. And it’s a great fit for us. But I think there’s a danger in black-and-white-only thinking: you either go along with your baby’s sleep routine, no matter the consequences; or you leave her to cry for hours at a time causing her to lose her trust in you completely. Again, I completely agree that sleep training is potentially harmful to a newborn or infant. And that eventually, pretty much everybody learns to sleep through the night, one way or another. But why isn’t anybody talking about the in-between?

After recognizing that my daughter’s needs had shifted—from needing to nurse frequently through the night to needing a full night’s sleep—I was able to see that what we’d created was a habit of waking that was no longer healthy for her. I also realized what I already knew—she’s older now and CAN understand the concept of lying herself back down and going to sleep.

You say:

“Baby trainers often state that it is important for an infant learn to pacify itself, but an infant, like stated before, has no way of understanding that they are supposed to comfort themselves. They have no tools to do that. Leaving an infant to himself will in fact do just that; it will teach him to take his emotions and, instead of expressing them, it will teach the infant to internalize all that anger need and fear. The infant will come to an understanding that their wants/needs will not be met and that they must fend for themselves. When this happens in an infant, many people believe that the sleep battle has been won and that the parent has been victorious. What they do not understand is that they may have won the battle but they have lost the war for trust.”

But, again, what about toddlers? Who haven’t “naturally” found their way to getting a healthy night’s sleep? I honestly believe that an AP-raised toddler is capable of putting herself to sleep—and staying asleep. And I do believe that for some, like my daughter, the presence of a parent throughout the night can become an interference. A hindrance to learning to sleep well.

Why does it have to be all battles and wars? I’m not saying what we did would work for anybody else, but it is disheartening to now feel like we’re not “AP” enough because we decided that our daughter was old enough to put herself to sleep with a minimal (no more than five minutes) amount of (non-distressed) crying. We tried it. It worked. And I am 100 percent confident that my daughter gets the sleep she needs to fuel her days of learning and growing and that she continues to trust in her parents.

I guess what I’m saying is, there’s a gray area, and we’re sleeping in it.

And here’s what I added a few minutes later:

Oh, and what I left out (can you believe it?) is this: had we not been willing to put our AP-ness aside and given our daughter five minutes to figure out how to put herself to sleep, who knows how much longer she’d have gone without getting a healthy amount of sleep?

The trouble is, we’re not even winning this half. For those of you who are not parents, let me go on the record saying that making decisions that affect your child can be really, really tough. Sometimes you think you’ve made up your mind only to find that you’re not as resolved as you thought. Yes, I am STILL hung up on Sadie’s sleep.

Monday night was awesome. If your name was Brooke or you had fur. For Sadie and Trevor, it meant waking up about every hour. After I got so mad at Trevor for interrupting what I had (at the last minute) decided was THE PLAN for teaching Sadie to fall asleep on her own, he turned around and gave me my first full night’s sleep in over a year. Not too shabby. Now, before you go all Poor Trevor on me, he reported that several of the times Sadie woke up, he was able to get her back to sleep before she even stood up in the crib (which makes me think she wasn’t fully awake to begin with, but who knows).

If you haven’t picked up on this yet, I am a serious research junkie. And this has created some problems as a new parent. One minute I’m all, let’s do this sleep coaching method. Then I’m saying, maybe crying isn’t the worst thing ever. Then I get a full night’s rest and go back to my trusty Dr. Sears and think maybe Trevor’s right… maybe if he just works with her on getting through the night without nursing, her stretches of sleep will get longer. Because what if I’ve been focusing on the wrong thing altogether? What if, because of my increasingly desperate sleep deprivation, I’m stressing about getting Sadie to fall asleep on her own, when maybe she’s just not ready for it. What if what actually needs to change is how frequently she’s waking up in the first place.

Here’s the good news: even with the not-so-awesome nights, Sadie is still thriving. She is happy, she is fun, she is growing and doing all sorts of cool things. So my major stress is not that Sadie’s not getting what she needs. My major stress is that I am not, and that I’m starting to burn out. There, I said it.

I can haz crunchee granola barz?

In reading and in talking to other moms, I suspect a major cause of Sadie’s night waking is the habit of waking up and nursing all the time. I absolutely wouldn’t undo all of the night nursing she and I did, but I do believe, at her age, it’s a habit and not a need. She eats plenty of solid food during the day, she still nurses on demand when we’re together, and she still gets pumped breastmilk in a cup. I’ve been halfway night weaning Sadie for about a week now, and it’s pretty much happened without effort. For several nights I limited her nursing to before 11:00pm and after 6:00am. Monday night she didn’t nurse after her 7:00 bedtime session. Yes, she has definitely continued to wake up A TON those nights, but she’s not demanding to be fed by any means. She has been settled back to sleep relatively easily.

So here’s where we are now: I do Sadie’s post-dinner getting ready for bed routine. Trevor does bedtime story and puts her to sleep. Trevor sleeps in her room with her and gets up to settle her back to sleep throughout the night. Brooke sleeps soundly in her bed, catching up on a year’s missed sleep (if only that were actually possible). The hope is this: as Sadie realizes that nursing isn’t part of the nighttime equation, she will gradually begin to wake up less frequently, allowing Trevor to move back into our bed.

Honestly, I can’t believe he’s signed up for this. Don’t get me wrong, it’s AWESOME. Let’s just hope it lasts and that it works.

Anybody have any thoughts or suggestions? Success or horror stories? Am I the only mom to flip-flop on decisions like this on a daily (or hourly) basis? Parents of fariy-tale babies who have always slept perfectly need not apply .