"Don't do it," people warned us throughout my pregnancy. "You'll want to, but don't rock him to sleep. If you do, he'll never be able to fall asleep on his own." Terrified of this dreaded consequence, we followed these instructions exactly. I nursed him and put him in his bassinet, where he fell asleep promptly.
But when he was 7 weeks old, he developed colic. The cure? Bounce him to sleep in our arms. Sing to him. Let him sleep sitting up. Whatever it took. He kept waking up, and when he didn't need to nurse, we would gently bounce and sing to him until he closed his eyes. Then, we'd carefully lay him in his crib, trying not to wake him. Sometimes, our little boy didn't want to lie down, so we had to put him in his chair and rock him until he slept. Sometimes, we co-slept. I have to admit, I loved cuddling, but I knew all these variations of sleep had to stop eventually.
By four months, the colic had improved, but bedtime was a disaster. We'd fallen into the bedtime hole.
Read More »from Parenting Guru: Is sleep training inevitable?
