Micronaxx

Knock knock!
Who’s there?
{scary-guy voice} GET IN MY MOUTH!!
😉
Follow up:
Knock knock!
Who’s there?
Get in my hands…
good, good…
{scary-guy voice} now GET IN MY MOUTH!!!
In short, getting stuff into his mouth is pretty much the singular punchline in the Finnster’s life these days. He reminds me of the goat speaking in an article on The Onion: “I bet you got a nice pant leg. Lemme chew a hole in it. I could chew it until you yanked it out of my mouth. If you don’t mind. I’m telling you, I could use a little something to chomp on…”

Finn has recently become a huge fan of being on his tummy. We always put him down to sleep on his back, and within seconds, he has rolled over onto his tummy. There he remains for his entire nap or night’s sleep. Initially, we’d go in and flip him back over, but inevitably he’d roll over again within minutes, so we stopped intervening. He seems to be sleeping better, and we’re all for that. Between tummy sleeping and sleep training, we have been catching a lot more zzz’s as a family than we were a couple weeks ago.
Finn hasn’t yet worked out how to roll himself back over to his side or his back, so it’s a good thing he doesn’t complain about spending all that time on his belly! We’re trying to give him plenty of opportunities during playtime to figure out how to get off his stomach. He’s *thisclose* and we think he’ll get it figured out in a few more days.

As a new mother, I am spending a lot of time learning about babies and sleep. Sleep is critical to a baby’s health and development, and I want to help Finn develop good sleep habits. When he was 2-3 months old, he spoiled us by sleeping for seven- or nine-hour stretches without a peep. As he got older and his sleep cycles changed, he started waking up more often and seemed to need our help to get back to sleep. Recently, we have found that our “help” ends up aggravating him and making it even more difficult for him to settle. After doing a lot of reading, working to set up good habits and sleep rituals over the past couple of months, and consulting with our pediatrician, John and I have agreed to try the “progressive waiting” technique developed by Dr. Richard Ferber, to help Finn learn to go to sleep and fall back asleep on his own.
We know that everyone will not agree with this approach. Sleep training techniques are very polarizing, and Ferber’s technique is often referred to as “crying it out”, making it sound like heartless, cruel, and unusual punishment. Now, having read his book and talked to our doc, and taking into account Finn’s personality and tendencies, we feel that this method will work well, and is the most efficient way for Finn to learn to settle himself. In a nutshell, you want your baby to learn to put himself to sleep without relying on sleep crutches like rocking, patting, shooshing, etc., which we think are helpful things, but actually aren’t (as evidenced by Finn ratcheting up the crying and wakefulness when we show up).
Ferber’s technique is a structured way to let your baby learn how to do this on his own with a minimum of interference from us. We go in and briefly check on/reassure him at prescribed intervals until he falls asleep on his own. And according to our doc, the earlier you can teach your baby how to take care of himself, the less likely it is they will have sleep problems as they get older (and which are harder to resolve as they age).
We’re on night #2, and so far, Finn is doing really well. Last night we checked on him twice, and right after that, he fell asleep. A grand total of about 40 minutes spent on “Ferberizing.” He awoke at 11:30pm and we did the intervals again, and he only needed one check. Tonight, we put him to bed and only checked on him once after 12 minutes, then he put himself to sleep. We’re also doing this at naptime and he’s making progress there, too. We were already 75% of the way there since we’d already set up a predictable bedtime routine, and had started putting Finn in the crib while he was awake, and then sticking around and soothing him to sleep.
We love our little guy, and we know he’s smart enough and capable enough to learn to soothe himself, and so far he’s proving us right on all counts. Good sleep habits are good for the whole family, and a well-rested Finn makes everyone happy.

Answer: Asleep! (For now, anyway.) And even better, neither he nor I nor the house have caught on fire, fallen into the sea, or anything similarly disastrous.
Today marks a pretty big milestone: Margot had to fly to Seattle for work, and she’s no doubt in the air right now, nearing San Jose. The Squirrelmaster General and I have been kicking it bachelor-style since, oh, 4:40am, ably assisted during the day by Carol.
Tonight I took the small guy on an hour-long walk, bathed him on my own, and got him down to rest (albeit after some false starts and rookie moves by dad; those PJ’s are just *not* gonna go on properly). Who knew that the developmental milestones we’d be celebrating would be mine? 😉