And that has made all the difference.

No, this is not a post paying homage to Robert Frost.

It's about sleep. 

Hank has never been a great napper. For the first eight months, he slept in a sling on my chest because he just couldn't settle himself at the 45-minute mark (which is the length of an infant's REM cycle). Then for awhile, I nursed him to sleep and placed him in his crib for naps, but he just could not sleep past 45 minutes. Sometimes I'd get an hour, but that was pretty rare. I figured out pretty quickly that if I went in there, nursed him back down, and then held him for the rest of his nap, he would sleep soundly and thus, sleep better at night. So I would hold him for about 1.5 hours on the weekends and a couple days during the week when Johnny was occupied with something else. But the guilt! Oh, the guilt. I'd be sitting in there holding Hank, knowing I couldn't put him down or he'd wake, listening to Johnny talk to himself down the hall, sometimes coming to Hank's door and saying, "Mommy? Can you come play with me, Mommy?"And the fact that he wanted to play with me and I couldn't (or wouldn't, depending on how you look at it) come out really wrought havoc on Johnny's and my relationship.

FINALLY, as in, for the last nine days or so, he has started sleeping for a full two hours. Sometimes longer, depending on how long our morning was. And I don't have to do anything at the 45 minute mark. I guess he finally got to the age where one nap is enough and is no longer overtired by the time I put him down.

Napping like a boss.

Now Johnny and I have some one-on-one time together and it's great. I'll tell Johnny, "I'm going to go put Hank down for his nap. I'll be right back, okay?" And he'll say, "Okay. Then we'll have some Johnny and Mommy time?" It's really nice that my independent, will-not-hesitate-to-leave-me-behind-in-a-public-place little boy wants to spend time with me. Hank's napping really HAS made all the difference.

Product of Johnny and Mommy time.

No nap raid

Johnny stopped taking regular daytime naps right before he turned two. I mean, I still NEEDED to nap, but the fight to get him down along with the stress of dealing with an infant Hank just became too much for me, so I stopped putting him down for his afternoon nap. For awhile there, he would still pass out almost daily in the car, or being held by a parent, or occasionally on the floor of a room other than his bedroom.

These days, he still needs a nap every once in awhile, but certainly not daily. It doesn't mean that he takes one when he needs one though. The kid hates sleep. This has not changed since day 1. So, I still don't push naps, but if it's been more than five days and he hasn't napped, I'll try to take a well-timed car ride to help him out. He becomes an entirely different kid after he sleeps a little. Even though his night sleep is pretty good these days, a nap will transform him from whiny, meltdown-prone, unhappy child to a happy, laughing, playing kid. Which is why I wish he would take a nap when he needs one.

Today he woke up really early and even though we didn't do much but putz around the house, he was falling apart by 3pm. He really really really needed to sleep, but didn't want to give in. I tried to get him to get in the car, but that was a resounding "NO!". I tried to hold him and rock, but he squirmed away. I finally got down on his level and said, "Johnny, don't you want to feel better?" To which he replied, "Yeah! I wanna feel better!" with tears streaming down his cheeks. Then I told him, "If you sleep a little bit, just a little, I think it's going to make you feel better." He gave me one look, turned away, walked into his room and laid down. I came in to cover him with a blanket and turn his fan on and then he was OUT.

It. was. amazing. In bed, without a fight? Bliss. Accepting logic without a fight? I guess that means he's getting older.

The trouble with 4am

Some Many of you know that Hank wakes up between the hours of 4am and 4:30am every day, and if you don't, it's because you don't follow me on facebook or Instagram (@mamadurso on IG... if you're interested). I do an awful lot of complaining about Hank's rooster-like tendencies on various social media. At least I used to. Now I'm just kind of used to it. That, and I upped my caffeine intake to five cups of coffee a day.

Even though I'm used to it doesn't mean it doesn't still suck. Yes, four o'clock is early and I do feel tired getting up that early, but there are other reasons why waking up so early is a bummer.

1. The day is reeeeeeeally long. Waking up at 4am and then staying up until Johnny goes to bed around 8 or 8:30pm makes for a 16 hour day. 16 hours of feeding, changing and entertaining children. I love my job, yes, but 16 hours of it is exhausting. And that doesn't even include after-hours clean up time.

2. Nothing is open that early. Typically I like to get out of the house in the morning while the boys are (relatively) rested. It makes for fewer meltdowns and they always get hungry for lunch, giving us a reason to go home. Well, at 4am, or even 5am when Johnny gets up, nothing is open. The indoor playareas we frequent are closed, the zoo is closed, SeaWorld is closed, and all of our local parks are out of the question because it's still FRIGGING dark outside.

3. Morning play dates are rough. Most play dates start around 9:30 or 10am. Well, by that time, Hank and I have been up for nearly six hours and he is jonesing for a nap. So I spend a majority of the play date keeping Johnny from stealing toys from other children (or them stealing from him) while holding a really heavy Hank. We usually leave when Hank starts melting down over something silly from lack of sleep.

So there you have it. The three major issues (besides exhaustion) of waking up super early with your toddler. There is one major positive though, and that's that most play areas (indoor and outdoor) are DESERTED in the afternoon since most normal children take naps at that time. After Hank has his 45 minute nap (unless I can hold him the whole time, then it's 2 hours) we try to get out of the house again to burn some energy before its time to come home to make dinner.

Oh, I guess I should note that getting up extra early with Hank means I get some quality alone time with him.. but to be honest it's not all that quality since I'm pretty much a zombie that early, regardless of coffee intake.

The time I had a bad idea.

As many of you are well aware, the boys aren't sleeping too well these days. Johnny's still going to bed around 9pm and getting up about 5am. Now, by adult standards, 8 hours is a lot. But by toddler and Johnny standards? Not enough. Especially considering that he would sleep for 11 - 12 hours a night in his crib.

So at the end of last week, I thought we should try the Walk In/Walk Out technique (from the Baby Whisperer) to get Johnny to fall asleep without needing one of us to rub his back for two hours. The first night? No problem. I did the bedtime routine, got Johnny into bed by 7:40 and was out of his room by 7:50. He started crying for me to rub his back, so I went in, put my hand on his back, gave him a kiss, said "good night" and walked out. He cried again, so I did the same thing. This went on for about fifteen minutes and then he conked out! Yes, the child that seemed to need Daddy to rub his back for hours on end in order to fall asleep actually fell asleep at a reasonable hour without parental intervention. VICTORY! The next night, however, didn't go so well. He kept getting out of bed, turning on his light, turning off his fan, anything but staying in bed. After quite awhile, John ended up going in there to rub Johnny's back again until they both fell asleep. *sigh*

On Saturday, I suggested we let him decide when to fall asleep. John's parents said that they never had set nap times or bed times, they just let their kids fall asleep wherever and whenever and it worked well for them. What could it hurt? Let's give it a try.

Um... wow. It certainly didn't work for us. Instead of slowing down as the hour got later, Johnny just got more and more worked up. I finally went to bed around 10:30 because I still get up with Hank every two and a half hours. So John stayed up. Until 1 in the morning. ONE AM!! The only reason Johnny fell asleep at 1am is because John finally coaxed him into bed and rubbed his back for a little while. He could well have been

So John was rather irritable the next day after getting about four hours of sleep since he still woke up at 5am. Johnny slept in until 7am, but after getting six hours of sleep, he was pretty difficult to deal with all day. At least he went to bed at 7:30 that night with minimal fuss.

The silver lining here? Now we know that Johnny isn't the kind of kid who falls asleep even though he's tired. It's good to know your kids, right?

Why, hello, 4 month sleep regression!

Remember that time I said that Hank was sleeping pretty well at night? Waking up at 1am and 5am and then up for the day at 7am? Well, that's over and done with.

Now he's going down at 7PM, waking at 11PM and then every 45 minutes to an hour after that. It's been a pretty brutal couple of weeks. You'd think it would be harder to deal with since I have a toddler to chase, but Johnny actually kind of makes things easier.

For one thing, I'm not bored and therefore miserable during the day thinking about how tired I am; it's go-go-go all the time. For another, since Johnny did the same non-sleeping thing at the same age and now sleeps awesome at night and takes a good afternoon nap, I know that Hank's lack of sleep will end eventually. Tomorrow? Probably not. A month from now? Not likely. In six months? Now we're talking.

It just goes to show that no matter what I do, I'm effed in the sleep department. I can follow what the sleep experts say to do (like I did with Johnny) and end up with a non-sleeper. I can do what my instincts tell me to do (like I've done with Hank) and end up with a non-sleeper. Oh well.

Breaking up is hard to do

Hank has lived in the ring sling these last (almost) 12 weeks. It's been great because it definitely allows more ventilation than any other carrier I own and Hank can curl up just the way he likes in it. The biggest (and only) downside is that it kills my back and shoulder. I normally wear the ring side, which is the load-bearing part, on my right shoulder to keep my right arm free while my left arm hits Hank's butt (he loves it, I promise). But now that he's heavier, that's a lot of weight to hang on my shoulder. So I decided to try out the Ergo, so named because it is ERGO-nomic. I figured it'd make my back feel a lot better.

15 minutes later...

The Ergo lasted a grand total of twenty minutes. Hank did fall asleep in it, but his little feet lost circulation because he likes to sleep with his feet together and his knees spread, which means his feet were caught in the waist belt... tightly. So he woke up.

A couple days ago, however, I tried out the Moby out of sheer desperation for some back pain relief.

And that worked out really well, except for the ridiculous amount of sweating I did. Even Hank was hotter than usual. Can you see the sheen of perspiration on his little brow in the picture above? So even though my back and shoulders felt a lot better, Hank and I were way hotter than usual. Which prompted a return to the ring sling. Oh well. Sooner or later he'll start spreading his legs more and the Ergo will serve. If not, the temperature is sure to dip below 90 degrees in a couple of months and I can rock the Moby. Or maybe he'll take naps in his crib. *gasp!*

Parenting decisions: the bottle

Johnny was breastfed until he was a little more than 10 months old, then I switched him to formula at my OB's suggestion (apparently breastfeeding can stimulate strong contractions and then miscarriage in some women) and so he has been using a bottle ever since. He switched to cow's milk easily and he dropped the morning bottle in favor of a sippy cup awhile ago and quite readily.

But he still takes a bottle before his nap and before bedtime. And apparently that's a bad thing.

The pediatricians I've gone to have all been surprised that he's still bottle fed. "If he has no problem taking milk from a sippy cup, so why haven't you switched him over entirely?" "You know that his teeth may be adversely affected by taking a bottle for so long, right?" "Taking it away is only going to get harder the later you do it."

I can't decide how I feel about this issue. On one hand, I know it's a big part of his soothing process for sleep since he doesn't take a pacifier or suck on his thumb and it's one of the only times I get to cuddle with him since he's such a mover and a shaker. On the other hand, I know that if I don't get rid of it before the baby comes, he'll end up being two and a half years old still drinking a bottle. Does that bother me? I'm not sure. I've had people tell me that when they get older, you can reason them out of using a bottle/pacifier/sucking the thumb by telling them it's what babies do and they aren't babies any more. Then I have other people telling me how difficult it was to get their toddler to drop the bottle and they wish they had done it earlier.

I'm writing this because I just put Johnny down for his nap without a bottle (or being breastfed) for the first time ever... and it was a fight. I finally managed to calm him down after screaming loudly for fifteen minutes, but he had to fall asleep in my arms before I got him into his crib, which I'm pretty sure is just replacing one crutch (the bottle) with another (me). I had decided a month ago that when Johnny went into his big boy room, we would drop the bottle a week or so later. This decision was made easier by the fact that his nap schedule has gone to hell in the last three weeks... but that's a story for another day. I figured that getting rid of the bottle couldn't possibly make his napping any worse, so this is good time to try it.

But now I'm second-guessing myself. Which, I suppose, is the core of being a parent, right?

Sleep begets sleep

Once upon a time, I was a stay-at-home-pregnant-woman and had nothing better to do than stock up on baby supplies and read books about taking care of newborns. One of the books I read (I forget which one) talked about how with babies, it's important to get them a lot of "healthy" sleep, because unlike adults, "sleep begets sleep." Basically, the point was that with older children (and adults), keeping the day filled with activities that will tire them out means they will sleep well at night, but babies are not this way. They need lots of healthy sleep, healthy meaning good long stretches that won't be interrupted by the motions of a car or swing. The well-rested infant will sleep more because he/she is getting lots of sleep. The infant who does not get enough sleep will not be able to fall asleep easily because they will be "overtired" and thus, will not settle.

When I first read this, I shared it with John, who told me that it didn't make sense at all. I thought it made perfect sense after I had a newborn and experienced the overtired state that could also be called the fifth circle of hell (not so bad that it has to be relegated to the seventh circle). Now, I have proof of this "sleep begets sleep" thing.

Johnny slept for 17 hours on Saturday night. No joke. We put him down at 7PM and he slept until 11:30AM. He woke up a little here and there, but never cried to get up, so we didn't go get him. Now, according to most people, he wouldn't be able to go to bed that night, right? He should have been wired and tireless with a bedtime closer to 10PM than 7PM... not true. He went down like a ton of bricks at 7:30PM. And stayed asleep for the next 12.5 hours. No wakings, no midnight wimperings, nothing. Out like a light.

Last night, however, Johnny did not sleep very well. The heater in our house really dries out his nose and throat and makes him uncomfortable, so there was a lot of waking and adjusting and he woke up earlier than normal. Nap time? Way worse than usual. Kicking, screaming in agony, writhing as I tried to calm him down. I finally managed to get him to sleep, but it was an epic battle and some tears were shed. Putting him down tonight after a short nap and not sleeping well last night? The same kind of struggle.

It seems to me that some of those experts might actually know what they're talking about... even if it doesn't seem to make sense.

Daylight Savings Time and its effect on the sleeping child

Most adults hate the "spring forward" part of DST, right? You lose that one precious hour of sleep and it throws your day off since outside it looks like it's 11AM, but it's actually noon. Since the "fall back" part of DST was AWFUL for Johnny, I had expected the spring forward to be just as miserable. I was fully prepared to adjust bedtime over the span of a week so he could get back to a normal nighttime sleeping pattern. I had readied myself to deal with a toddler who would not go down for a nap because we missed his napping window. I had prepared for war... and did not need any of the preparations I had made.

He slept for 13 hours at night from Sunday to Friday. Yeah, THIRTEEN HOURS of glorious sleep! Plus, he even took a three hour nap most days. For those who haven't done the math yet, that is 16 hours of sleep a day. I'm not expecting this to become a pattern, but it was pretty awesome to actually sleep past 6:15AM and to have a child who was ridiculously happy about life every day.

Thank you, Daylight Savings Time, you have redeemed yourself this spring. Please consider staying this way and just bypassing the "fall back" portion of the cycle.

P.S. As I write this, Johnny is happily hanging out in his crib talking to himself. Yes, it is 9:36AM and he woke up fifteen minutes ago and has not made any fuss. WHO IS THIS KID?!

Johnny sleeping

It is very rare to snap a picture of Johnny sleeping since he sleeps in his own room and hardly ever falls asleep in view of any human being. Last week I had to wake him up for a baby gym class we go to on Mondays, so I brought the camera on the off chance he'd stay asleep long enough for me to get a photo or two...

It was really dark in his room, so I didn't realize that I had focuses on his crib bumper instead of his face, but you can still see the adorableness through the blur, right?

He actually fell asleep in my arms yesterday as I was getting him ready for his morning nap and I just sat there in my rocking chair staring at him. It seems like it's been a long time since he has just fallen asleep on me and given me a chance to marvel at how perfect he is. I just spent a few minutes in the dark and quiet, studying his little face and how much it has changed in this last year. I'm so blessed to have such a sweet wonderful little boy. Even though I get really frustrated with him when he does stuff like this:

I suppose should just recall those dark quiet moments of us rocking together yesterday whenever he pulls crap like climbing on the dishwasher.

Crying it out

Up until a month ago, Johnny didn't sleep through the night. Our night would go something like this:
7:30pm: Put in crib after nursing to sleep
10pm: Wake up, nurse back to sleep.
12am: Wake up, nurse back to sleep.
1am: Wake up, nurse back to sleep.
2:30am: Wake up, nurse back to sleep.
4am: Wake up, nurse back to sleep.
4:30am, 5am, 6am: Wake up, nurse back to sleep.

Finally, after a few weeks of this, John just put a twin bed in Johnny's room and I would go in there around 1am (when Johnny woke up) and I'd try to sleep on my side while Johnny nursed the rest of the night. Now, this sounds like it shouldn't be a big deal, right? I mean, I could just bring Johnny to bed with me and then he could feed while I slept. Not as great as it sounds. I am not a particularly "well-endowed" woman, so sleeping on my side with Johnny latched on and sleeping like that is about as easy as sleeping on a 3-inch wide balance beam--there isn't a lot of wiggle room. I also couldn't handle having Johnny sleep in bed with me and John because I like having time alone with John (even if we're asleep). So, I was sleeping in Johnny's room half the night.

Finally, after getting back from Lake Powell, I decided I was done with this nonsense. He's eight months old, he should be able to go at least six hours without a feeding. I decided I wanted to try crying it out. My friend Jill had a lot of success with it for her little boy so I thought I'd give it a whirl.

It was hard. I'm not going to lie. Waking up in the middle of the night and not going to him was really difficult. However after the first night, which was full of awakenings, the second night he only woke up a couple of times. Then the third, only once. And now a month later, hardly ever. If he does wake up these days he will whimper a little, readjust, and fall back asleep, BY HIMSELF! Magic, I tell you.

We also tried the whole cry it out thing for naps, but that didn't work out so hot. He's not one to conform to any kind of schedule. While the CIO strategy didn't help with establishing a nap schedule, it did help him learn to fall asleep during the day by himself. So now we have a little routine that we do when he's showing signs of being tired. After fifteen minutes of soothing he goes in his crib and he will either fall right to sleep or cry for a little while and fall asleep... and STAY asleep. As in, for more than 45 minutes.

Have I damaged my child for life? I doubt it. Being with him all day every day, I notice small improvements in his demeanor and behavior. No one notices these things but me and you may say that I'm cruel for making him cry so much for such little things, but you know what? Johnny's quality of life is better because my quality of life is better. Hell, ask John, I'm sure he'll tell you that being in the same room is me is a heck of a lot easier. Having fewer than 6 nights of decent sleep in 8.5 months will made me a wee bit snippy... and the people close to me got the brunt of it. Plus, now I know if he cries out the middle of the night and doesn't stop within a few minutes, there is something wrong.

All around crying it out was tough, but it worked for us. Hopefully the next child will be a little better at this sleep thing... or he'll just be more ignored than Johnny and will learn to be by himself sooner...

Yay sleep!

Sleeping through the night?

A couple of weeks ago, I had a revelation. When I went in to Johnny's room at 10:30pm, after he woke up for the first time (this is relatively normal) I noticed he was burying his face in the mattress and throwing his legs to the side. Now, he's done this before, and I've just chalked it up to him trying to settle himself. Well, this time, I tried putting him on his tummy and Wham! He was out. He stayed out until 7am the next morning. SEVEN O'CLOCK! It was glorious. It got even better when the next night, instead of putting him on his back as per usual, I put him on his tummy. Wham! Asleep. All the way up to 6:30 the next morning. He has NEVER done that before. Usually when I say he's "sleeping through the night" it means that he will go down at 8pm and wake up around 4am to eat. Well, this time, I had two REAL nights of sleep. Absolutely amazing.

And that was it. Every night since he as awakened at least twice during the night (every 2.5 to 3 hours on a bad night) whether he is on his back or his tummy. *le sigh* I just don't get it. Perhaps one day, preferably before he goes to college, he will reliably go to sleep and stay asleep until 6:30am. One day.

This is typical naptime for Johnny. Asleep in the swing with the vacuum noise going. The ball is new though... I couldn't get it from him without waking him so he just slept with it in his hand.

Ode to Dr. Ferber

Johnny has sleep issues. He doesn't nap longer than 45 minutes, he wakes up at least twice a night (but he isn't hungry), and getting him to sleep at night is a test of will of patience. Normally, John will change his diaper and get him into pajamas while playing quietly with him then hand him off to me so I can nurse him to sleep. About 45 minutes to an hour later, I quietly get up from the chair, tiptoe to the crib, gently lay him down, and pray that he will stay asleep. If he doesn't, then I sit back down and nurse him some more. Needless to say, this is a very long process which not only I protest, but my poor abused nipples do as well (sorry, that might have been TMI... eh, whatever).

So this week, on Mother's Day, John and I embarked on a journey with Dr. Ferber, author of Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems. I read the book about a month ago, but didn't have the heart to start "Ferberizing" until now. For a long time, I thought Johnny was just hungry at night, but then I stopped nursing him at night and just focused on getting him back to sleep and he was fine. He was just waking up and needed help from me. Well, it is nice to be needed, but I've heard horror stories from other moms who are still getting up with their children twice a night at age 2. I'm already delirious and snippy from the lack of sleep in the last five months, can you imagine what kind of a b*tch I'd be after two years of interrupted night sleep and no naps? Exactly. And so enters Dr. Ferber.

Dr. Ferber is not a proponent of "cry it out" like so many people think, but he does think that it's difficult to teach a child to sleep without a little crying. So, he suggests a "check and console" method where you check on your child after a certain interval of time to let them know that you are there and not abandoning them. You check in increasing intervals of time throughout the evening. For instance, start with 3 minutes, then 5, 7, 10 and continue to go in every 10 minutes. The next night do 5, 10, and 15 minutes, etc. Eventually your child will get the idea that you're still there, but you're not a "sleep prop" anymore.

We started on the night of Mother's Day (ridiculous, right?) and he cried for 45 minutes after we put him down (we were checking on him during those 45 minutes). The next night, we put him down and there was NO CRYING! Whoo-hoo!! So here we are, a few days later, and he will cry and whimper for a few minutes and then he's done and asleep. The night wakings have gotten better, too, as I haven't even had to go into his room when he wakes up; he'll just yell for a little bit and then pass out. AND to top it off, his naps have gotten better! We actually have three solid naps a day! The first one is 2.5 - 3 hours long, the next is 1.5 - 2, and the last is 1 hour. And guess what? They happen about the same time every day!!!!! Hello routine, I have missed you dearly.

All of this sleeping adds up to him being an incredibly happy baby when he is awake. The evenings are joyous and full of smiles instead of tortured cries from an overtired baby. WIN!

Naptime

I've already talked about the issues with Johnny's naps, yes? Well, they haven't really gotten any better, I've just come to terms with the fact that he will never nap longer than 45 minutes. So, I decided to give up trying to extend his naps and spending forever trying to get him down. Now I just put him the swing, turn on my vacuum recording and let it work its magic.

Click here to see on YouTube.
Pretty great, right? Sometimes it takes longer for him to fall asleep, but usually this will do the trick. He just can't resist the sound of the vacuum.

2 Month Stats

Johnny and I went to the pediatrician today for his two month check up. Here are the stats:

Weight: 13lbs 14oz - 92nd percentile
Length: 24 inches - 86th percentile
Head circumference: 15.7 inches - 52nd percentile

He also had to get three shots and an oral vaccination today, which he handled like a champ . . . after he cried so hard his entire head turned beet red. After that, though, he was fine. Just tired, as usual. While we were there I asked the doctor about his sleeping habits, or lack thereof. She said it isn't normal for an infant his age to only take a few naps a day for 30 minutes each . . . so she suggested trying to put him down "drowsy but awake" to help him learn to soothe himself. It sounds to her like he's waking up after a REM/NREM cycle and then is unable to fall back asleep. So, she says I should wait awhile before responding to him when he wakes up at the 30 - 40 minute mark; since he's crying when he wakes up, he's probably still tired and it may be part of his soothing process to go back to sleep. However, she emphasized not to let him cry too long . . . whatever that means. She's convinced it will help him sleep longer at night, too . . . but I'm not too concerned about that at this point. I just want him to sleep during the day for goodness' sake! As I'm writing this, he's sleeping . . . and we're at the 45 minute mark! Perhaps there is something to this "drowsy but awake" thing.

And the livin's E.A.S.Y.

In my previous post, I made Johnny's disgust for napping known. I talked about the entrance of the lovely vacuum into our lives and my ingenious idea of making vacuum songs for Johnny to fall asleep to, so his nap looked something like this:

 Observe the iPod speakers in the bottom left corner. And the swing needed to get him to sleep.

Well, I take it all back. After almost week of trying to get to him to nap during the day, we're not doing so hot. He has decided that napping is not his thing and he can resist the magic of the vacuum noise if he really wants to. This has lead to him being severely overtired and thus, totally fussy and inconsolable in the evening, as Grandma Durso can attest to. I have decided that it's not okay to have a child who is overtired! The poor thing is so worked up that he can't get himself to sleep; it's tragic, really. Who doesn't love sleep?

And so I turned to my dear friend, the Interwebz.

I discovered a method called E.A.S.Y. by Tracy Hogg that revolves around making a pattern for your infant so they learn what to expect after a certain amount of time and to make it easier for exhausted moms to tell apart their child's cries. Oh, and to get their child some rest so that their cries actually sound different.
E: Eat
A: Activity
S: Sleep
Y: Your time (during the sleep)
The best part is, it's not a "cry it out" method, which I don't think I could handle, but was willing to try to get my poor son to sleep. All I have to do is follow the above chain of events and work on getting him into a rhythm. Ideally, he'd be on a 3-hour cycle, so he eats for 30 minutes, plays for 30 - 60 minutes and naps for 90 - 120 minutes. However, since the author stresses that every child is different  you need to refer to your child's cues, not a clock. Granted, it's not an easy thing to achieve, so it'll take some time. Hopefully, after a week (that's the average time it takes to take effect), I'll have a more rested, happier infant. So we can deviate from this:

To this:

 

It's a work in progress.