Sleeping Babies

"Always let a sleeping baby lie."

When Kate was first born this is something I did not do, mostly because I just couldn't help myself. I did have some rationale behind picking Kate up and cuddling her when she was sleeping. I figured since she was such a good sleeper, and slept all the time, a couple minutes of extra cuddle time here or there wouldn't hurt too much.

If she is reading this, my friend Heidi is laughing. When she found out I pick Kate up when sleeping she is the one who spoke this quote above to me while shaking her head. : )

Now that Kate is a year old, we couldn't have been luckier parents with her ability to sleep so peacefully throughout the night. But now I worry if we are about to change all of that.

At one year there is an abundance of things that "they" tell you to do or to stop doing. Some of these things that we have done, or are in the process of doing are:

• switching from bottle to cup (this was not a hard transition for Kate, especially now that she can drink from a straw)


• switching from formula to milk (this change did take Kate a couple of days to get used to, she wasn't too wild about whole milk at first, but now can't seem to get enough of the stuff)


• switching from pureed food to all solids (this happened on its own, with Kate being more interested in solids than mush, do you blame her?)

That leaves us with our final major change...taking away the pacifier.

I know that these are suggestions and do not need to be done at one year, but should be done in the way that best suits your individual child. Knowing me though, I figure...why not try?

Kate usually only has her pacifier when she is sleeping or on long car rides, other than that she rarely ever has it in her mouth (unless she finds it while playing and plops it in there).

Last night, John put her to bed without the pacifier for the first time...and she went right to sleep. I know that this may not be the end of this battle, but it sure strengthens our decision that she probably doesn't need it to fall asleep any more.

I guess we'll see!