(Un)Sleepy Sam

Sam was an awesome newborn sleeper. Usually 6-7 hours a night, occasionally more. Usually in my bed, but I digress. He has never been much for nursing to sleep, except in the middle of the night. He usually nurses and is up for a bit and then is ready to go to bed. I always scoff when I hear parents who don't want their child to go sleep nursing or with a bottle. Why not? It's easy. Granted you have to get them off it at some point, but it buys you a year of putting a child to sleep easily - if you could sell that on an infomercial, people would buy it.

Sam prefers to go to sleep with motion, which usually means the swing. Sometimes bouncing on my knee or hip does the trick. But when I have been up since 5:30 am, I am not really up for bouncing around the house at 9:30 pm until JUST the right moment when I can lay him down. And now he's not so into the swing. It still works, but not always. And so, I have a new method of putting him to sleep. I may patent it, so please don't steal my idea. I lay on the couch (yes, I am lazy) and lay him on my chest, pat his back, and put in his nuk if he will let me. Then I do mini crunches (see, not lazy) and sing one of several songs in my repertoire, mostly where I make up words to classic lullabyes that are along the lines of "please sam will you just go to sleep". But I sing it soothingly, so it counts. Usually we start out with some crying, because little Sam loves to cry when he is tired. And it's the kind of cry where you think someone is pinching him. Hard. But usually within a minute of the patting and the crunching he settles right down. And within a few minutes of "Please sam go to sleep. Please please please", he is sleeping. Sometimes so am I. But you should see my abs.