Moms, Empowerment, Sleep and other issues

One of the things I forgot to mention that we are doing to try to stop our son from hitting our daughter is to make him feel partly responsible for her.  We are really starting to have him help with her (even more than before).  He helps feed her, gets her p.j.’s, brings her her blanket, etc.  Having him really feel like he takes care of her and protects her will hopefully help his feelings of jealousy.  He pushed her in her stroller today on a walk with Mom, helped feed her at dinner and gave her a chew toy(she’s not a dog, she’s teething!) before he went to bed tonight.

His bedtimes are perfect.  The transition to the bed from the crib went about as good as it can go.  He doesn’t hardly ever get up after we put him to bed now, and if he does, he looks at a toy or a book for a minute and tucks himself back in.  In the past 6 nights he has only gotten up after being tucked-in 3 times, and each time he put himself back to bed within a few minutes and slept all night.  Hooray! 

I cannot overemphasise how important our sleep is.  That has truly been the hardest part of the physical parenting for both my wife and I, the lack of regular sleep.  We are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel though, with him trained and our daughter now sleeping through the night most nights (except last night).  The days of getting up 3-5 times per night, changing diapers and handing our daughter off to Mom are almost over.  I almost don’t know what to do when I get more than 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep!  You have to train your body that everything is O.K. and to just take advantage of it.  You are conditioned to get up every couple of hours, so (for a while) you get up automatically several times a night…even when she is sleeping through it.

As the weather improves, it gives us a chance to do more with the kids outside, which always seems to help them sleep better.  Something about fresh air and exercise…it really does make a difference.

Have a great day, and give your family a lot of love this weekend.  Especially the Moms out there!  We love you and appreciate all that you do.  I am reminded of the story where the husband goes off to work and comes home to see the garage door is open, the kids are playing out in the street, the driveway is full of bikes and toys and sticks, the gate to the yard is open with dogs and neighbor kids running all over the lawn.  As the husband enters the house, the television is on, the refrigerator door is wide open, the house is a disaster with food on the furniture and the floor, toys and clothes everywhere.  Every light in the house is on, there are crayon marks on the walls and the water is left running in most of the sinks.  He walks into the living room to see his wife and mother of the children on the couch reading a book.  He asks her what’s going on and she replies, “You know how you always ask me what I do all day when you are at work?”  “Well, today I didn’t do it.”