Parenting job #1 - accomplished

Way before I actually became a parent, I've held to the idea that the point of parenting is to raise the child into a healthy, whole and independent adult. I remind myself of that as I'm almost regretfully watching my little baby grow into a little boy.

The first step in the process of raising a child is to teach them how to sleep. Not only for our sanity (those first few months about killed me) but also for the life-long health of the child. To help us with this, we followed a friend's advice and have been following Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child (Amazon link on the side of the page).

Well, mission accomplished on the sleep front. Dawson is regularly sleeping through the night, which a few minor wake-ups here and there. He's also right on the nap schedule recommended in Healthy / Happy. A regular night is sleeping from 7:30 - 5:30 or 6:00. 5:30 is still a brutally early wake-up call but at least he's sleeping through the night. Occasionally, Dawson does us a huge favor as he did this morning, sleeping until 7:30! He woke up briefly at 4:30, 5:15 and 6:30 but he's able to self-sooth himself back to sleep.

But here's the whole point of this "mission accomplished," we had quite the struggle in helping Dawson learn how to sleep on his own, mainly midnight screaming sessions. You can read the whole story of how we "broke" his bad habits on Dawson's blog - here.

But isn't that why we become parents? To sacrifice what's comfortable and easy for us so we can teach a young life how to make it in the world? I KNOW the parenting challenges are just beginning, but it's nice to have struggled through to positive results in this first big step of parenting.