Whew! Has it actually been almost a month since I posted last? Where does the time go?!?

I guess that means that I've got a lot of work catching ya'll up on what's been going on here. S is doing well. We were going through a tough time with him, because he wasn't sleeping well. I got a lot of advice about what was going on, and what to do about it. We've tried several different things over the last couple of weeks, most of which didn't work. S's schedule went something like this: Bedtime was around 9:30-10 pm. From then, he'd wake up anywhere from every two hours all the way down to every hour. He'd "sleep" until about 9 am, then he'd be awake, usually take a nap after swim class at 11 am in the car for a few minutes, and take a few more short naps throughout the day. This was really wearing Amy out. So we decided to let him "cry-it-out". We started on a Thursday night, and basically we'd let him fall asleep naturally, just like we used to (usually in our bed), then transfer him to his own bed. He'd wake up, but I'd just go in there and comfort him every 15 minutes or so. He'd usually go back to sleep after about 30-45 minutes. But he was doing this several times a night! And I don't know how many of you agree with me on this, but it's hard to ignore a crying baby, much less try to get some sleep while they're crying! Anyway, we tried this for a couple of days, but on Sunday we had to get him up early to go to church. That was a BIG mistake. He got back home and we tried to put him down for a nap, and he must have cried hysterically for about an hour. We gave up on the "cry-it-out" method at that point...

We then tried to do the opposite: keep him with us when he cried. This really didn't work. This was when he started waking up every hour. I know he was tired - we all were - but I think he was fighting it so hard because he wanted to be with us and be awake.

Then I was called off to Goddard Space Flight Center for a couple of days. Amy was left on her own for a total of about 36 hours. That's when all hell broke loose, because it was just a (justifiably) very tired mother and a very tired baby. Needless to say, when I got back home it was not a pretty sight.

Amy went out and bought a book that was recommended by a couple of her friends who have babies also. We're currently going by what the book says, and things seem to be working out pretty well. Apparently we had an "over-tired child". The whole strategy was counter-intuitive to us, which might be why we were doing it wrong for so long.

According to the book, when the baby gets over-tired, that's when he has trouble sleeping. So we've been making S take much more time to sleep, and it's really paid off. Now, he goes to bed at around 6:30. (Don't get me wrong, he still cries a decent amount when put in bed, but now we have a strategy that we're sticking to) And sleeps until about 5-6 am. This is a little early for me, but we're still trying out this strategy and maybe we'll be able to get him to stay in bed just a little longer. Last night HE SLEPT FOR 11 HOURS!!!! That's the first time ever, and I think the first time he's slept for more than 6-7 hours straight since, well, probably since we brought him home from the hospital.

As I write this, I'm a little wary about writing the above, b/c of the tendency for me to "curse myself" by saying that things are great. One night does not a trend make. But one night is a damn good start!