Putting him to sleep on his own

Well, Siddhant is now 9 months. It's been a while since i have written and lot has happened since then and also the motherhood is falling into place.

Siddhant has been growing up very fast and is responding to us and plays with us and understands us. This has been the turning point,we being to understand his cues, has made life so much easier.

I bought a couple of books on parenting, after my friend who is doing Phd in Child Development recommended them to me.

1. Raising an emotionally intelligent child
2. How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk
3. Discipline the brazelleton way.

I have begun to read these books and i have begun to apply some of the principles. Though siddhant is still young, i am hoping this will be a good practice session of how i can talk to my child and understand his phsycology.

Being a strong advocate of breastfeeding, i stopped feeding him by the time he turned 9. He started cutting his teeth and that started distracting him to do everything else but drink milk. So that done, gave me a lot more energy, my hormone levels were coming back into place and my emotions were getting back to normal.

My next step was to start thinking of getting him to sleep on his own. All the while i used to stand by the crib and pat him to sleep, which over time was stressing my entire back. At the 9th month doc's appointment, i asked him, how can i get him to sleep on his own. All he said was, just put him down and get out of the room.

Could that be so easy? So many books were written on sleep schedules etc, and this is all i have to do. Well, it was indeed. I already had Siddhant on a schedule, like giving him a bath, reading 2 books, and giving him his night milk and say " Good night Siddhant, good night mumma, good nite puppa, ratri time, sleeping time, good night" And i used to pat him. And now, all i did was, did all the above, put him in bed and have him a elephant soft toy to hold and leave the room. Believe it or not, he wood talk to the toy about 5 - 10 minutes and would go off to sleep. Ofcourse there are days, he would keep getting up and stand holding onto the crib rail and would not want to go to bed, all i would do was put him back down and walk away. Eventualy he would go to sleep.

I think there is just a time and age for everything. The child should be able to understand what his parents are trying to tell him. And Siddhant understood all the was being told to him for going to sleep and he knew, that means shut eye for 9-10 hours. So it became really easy to put him to sleep on his own. He knew his routine.

This ofcourse will not hold good for parents, whose kids go to sleep in the same bed as their parents,, as this would mean, they require their parents to sleep along with them. Which is ok too, as generations of parents have been doing that and thats very nice.

Amazingly, whenever i thought of applying some routine/discipline, siddhant has cooperated. I keep thinking is it him or is it me. Now i think its both of us. He has it in his genes to cooperate i guess :)