Being a new parent definitely comes with its fair share of lessons and faux pas that you navigate to become a better dad and guardian to your sprout, but for the most part, I feel like I’ve been killing it; aside from the incident with the coke can and that one time I accidentally poked him in the eye with his pacifier.

That said, one place I feel we did kind of goof was sleep routines early on. All kids are different for sure, but so much was said about ‘get them tired, read, sing, bath, and then put them in their crib to learn how to fall asleep on their own’. They might cry, but if you are steady and consistent, they’ll figure it out and you’ll sleep better.

Hahaha

The first night was bad, as expected. He started wailing as soon as I put him down and didn’t take a breath for ten minutes, when I went in and picked him up. The guides say just do a little longer each day, but as soon as I picked him up he was out. I’d put him back in, pop up screaming. It was a rough week and by day four we said yeah, we’re going to do this later.

*7 months later*

Flash forward and we’re still promoting bad sleep habits. It went from rocking him with a bottle, then letting him fall asleep on my chest to giving him a bottle, brushing his teeth, then letting him lie next to me on a twin bed in the nursery til he fell asleep. This process could take >hours< as he rolled around, stood up, tried to escape the bed, or decided I hadn’t had enough concussions in my life as he spent the night head butting me like a ram. It’s not that never tried alternatives again, but with how much we were doing throughout the day, experimentation…wasn’t an option.

Throughout this process, Zel and I lost some of our time together, as now we were forever fated to be apart…trading off daily as to who was going to be the stuffed animal to get Zing to sleep. Sometimes this was ok…if I wanted to stream or write I could get some in on not my days, but some days I was so exhausted that even though I had the time, my brain was mush. I was getting frustrated, and finally this week, I decided to try again.

I am happy to say we’re on day 7 and he’s finally going to sleep on his own. I steeled myself, read and sang to him, and then sat him in his crib and fled the room, preparing for the worst. I set a timer; if he could make it 30 minutes before really losing it, I’d go in and help him down. He fussed a bit for about 15, but didn’t really dial it up. At 25 minutes…silence.

I got nervous and peeked into the room. He was fine, stirring but laying down. I did a backflip out of the room and shut the door again. Didn’t hear another peep out of him. When it was time for us to go to bed, he was snoring, arms wrapped around one of his plush friends.

It’s been like that for a week, and I’m feeling great. All the books say hahaha prepare for an inevitable sleep regression around this age, but at this point, we’re ready for anything.

Coincidentally or not, I stated to draw this at a very low point, feeling *incredibly* frustrated after a bad night so….huzzah!