Mommy - 1, Noah - 0.

Here is a true-mother post. I will admit it, we rock at certain parts of parenting. We have a very helpful, happy, well-mannered baby. He is independent and kind. He is empathetic and strong-willed.

One area we are total failures as parents is bedtime routine. While we DO have a routine, it is not a good one. It is consistent... brush teeth, sit with parent and rock, lay in bed until said baby falls asleep, sneak out without breathing in hopes you do not wake the monster. BUT, it is not a good routine. It takes every bit of an hour total.

We have recently gone on vacation with our dear friends, The Durbins, where it literally takes them 10 minutes (read book included) to put their little one down. We also recently went to visit our cousins in Runaway Bay, The Smalleys, where they too, take less than 10 minutes to put their little one down. TOTAL FAILURE.

What did we do?? Decide it was time for a change. We have decided it is time for Noah to learn to put himself to sleep. We are on a modified schedule from the above. We are sitting and rocking, and talking about bedtime routine. One of us will go lay with him for about 5-10 minutes, tell him "night night", and leave. (I am also doing this for nap time too, since I am home for summer break.)

He has fought us tooth-and-nail. He has cried...wailed. It has been terrible, but each night is a bit less dramatic and each night is a little less time consuming. Well, my friends, today was our breakthrough.

For the first time, I laid down with him, talked about our plan for the afternoon, gave him about 5 minutes, gave him hugs and walked out. He got up. I can hear him playing, but he never cried. He knocked on his door for a second, but ZERO tears.

I will call this one a HUGE success. WOOOOOO. Let's see if we can do this again tonight with such success.