Tough love for napping...

Dear Nicky,

Sorry if we tired you out a lot today. We're trying to teach you how to put yourself to sleep so that you can take some naps during the day, and, well, it involves a lot of crying. See, Doc Mock and other experts say that babies should take around two two-hour naps during the day. It's good for your body and brain to rest, regenerate, and grow. But because we're constantly stimulating you, it's harder for you to go to sleep by yourself. Till now we've been holding, walking, or rocking you to sleep in our arms, and you do go to sleep like that, but it's not restful, for you wake up cranky and crying. So starting today, we're trying to develop a routine to act as a sort of a signal to you to get into sleep mode. It's going to take a while, apparently. When we put you into your bassinet for a couple naps today, you had some real nasty crying fits. At least they seemed nasty to us. While loud and disquieting to us, in reality they didn't last more than five or ten minutes, and then you were asleep. If this works and eventually you can take a few hours' worth of continuous sleep during the day, think how much rest we'll all get. So play along, okay?

Love,
Dad