Baby Blue, 3; Received Parenting Wisdom, 0

As I have previously whined, we had a stretch of bad nights around here at the Scribbler-Blue Mansion last week. Night weaning was not going so smoothly, and Baby Blue was up at least once every night complaining about it vociferously.

There is a lot of good advice out there for parents who are dealing with infant and toddler sleep issues. The experts stress the importance of creating a bedtime routine, and giving the child the opportunity to learn how to put herself to sleep. I know that when we had to get tough with our sleepless little Baby LG, we had a lot of success taking that advice. So much success, in fact, that LG became a champion sleeper at the ripe old age of six months. (Now, of course, the problem is waking him up... but that's another story.) Mr. Blue and I, proud of our little sleep champion, considered ourselves to be sleep experts, baby.

However. Baby Blue wanted nothing to do with our successful, advice-driven sleep techniques. LG quickly and happily learned to put himself to sleep in his crib after a bedtime routine of hearing a few stories and listening to music. Baby Blue called in the International Red Cross to investigate allegations of torture when we tried the same techniques with her. I swear, she was in the process of hiring herself a lawyer specializing in human rights violations when we finally gave in. Ever since, her bedtime routine has been very simple, and roundly unrecommended by sleep authorities everywhere: I take her upstairs, lie down in her bed with her, and nurse her to sleep.

What? I'm sure that technique will continue to work very well for her when she gets to college.

But it gets better. A few nights ago, Baby Blue was rabidly insistent that she was not ready for beddy-bye yet, that she just wanted milk, and that she should just have milk downstairs on the couch with mama. OK, report me to the sleep authorities. We'd been out most of the evening, and I shrugged my shoulders and said fine. Given the choice between spending an hour in a darkened room with a wakeful toddler, or the same hour downstairs with my husband reading teh blogs, I chose the second option.

As it turned out, I miscalculated. Baby Blue was more tired than she was willing to admit; within a few minutes of having curled up on my lap to nurse, she was fast asleep. I cursed quietly and carried her upstairs to her bed, figuring that I could count the minutes until she woke herself up and began wailing for me.

Except. She slept peacefully through the night. For the first time in a week. Hmmmm.

So the next night, when Baby Blue said that she just wanted to have milk downstairs with mama, I acquiesced again. Again she fell asleep in my lap instead of in her own bed. Again she slept peacefully through the night.

Last night we went for the triple. Once again, we proved that "asleep in my lap"="sleeps through the night."

Maybe it's a coincidence. Maybe falling asleep in my arms soothes some sort of separation-anxiety issue she's having. I don't know. If it continues, I don't much care. Whatever works, that's my parenting motto. Or maybe "damn the torpedoes" is my parenting motto. Something like that, anyway. That's my parenting motto.

But I do have to wonder: is there ANY received parenting wisdom that Blue will not take pleasure in upending? Because I'm thinking that adolescence is going to be quite the event around here...