October 16, 2000 - Monday
Over the last three nights we've been much less sympathetic to Harry's early morning pouting than in the past. We've talked about being tougher before, but we've really never been committed. During the middle of the night, getting sleep has a way of becoming the priority and it's easy enough to pursue that aim first. The "trouble" we're facing now is that Harry's mother has usually nursed him to sleep and that often means nursing him back to sleep in the middle of the night and now he expects it. Or, if not the nursing specifically, he certainly expects the attention.

There is plenty of conventional thinking that suggests that nursing to sleep is not necessarily a good practice, for this very reason. But, Harry tends to nurse best during these times when he's really half asleep and not distracted by the goings on in the world around him. Since his weight started to fall off, we decided it would be best to feed him when he'd most ready to eat and deal with this potential problem later. And, later is now.

But, both Friday and Saturday nights, we spent plenty of time in Harry's room in the middle of the night, but his mother did not give him any milk. The result was a couple of nights of Harry being very upset, if not, bewildered by our apparent disregard for his interest. Today, Harry's voice is hoarse from all the protesting, though we really don't think he was as mad as he was frustrated. The good news is that last night, perhaps coincidentally, he slept very well and did not wake us up until about 5:30am and that's not too bad when we'd have gotten up at 6:00 anyway.


Comments, opinions?