I often find myself staring at one of my children. I watch them as they make faces, laugh, yell, and even sleep. Each and every one of those moments is special to me. My youngest just 10 months old today is only a little over a year younger than his big sister. Both of them are so young but that’s changing everytime I catch myself staring at them. I’m realizing how fast they’re literally growing before my eyes. It deeply saddens me to know that the little people I’m looking at now will one day no longer be little. I’m going to miss the innocence, the baby cheeks and yes one day I may even miss changing diapers.

I struggle with getting caught up in “other” things. Yes, I’m one of the 1.5 Million people who waited hours on opening day to get the new iPhone 4. Sometimes, focusing on these other things is necessary and often they’re not. The important thing, I think is realizing what you’re time is worth. Could I have been doing other things that day I waited for the iPhone? Sure, and in fact I was doing as much as possible to avoid the inevitable boredom that was setting in. While I’m going to find myself in the “other” things from time to time it’s important to keep myself aligned to what’s really important to me. It’s not hard to do since I’m constantly finding myself soaking in the joys of my babies.

When our first child ,Olivia, was born we had a different set of problems when it came time to getting her to sleep.  In the beginning it was relatively easy as she had her first full night of sleep in her crib at 9 weeks old.  For our son, Jake, it’s a bit of a different story.  Last night was his first full night in his own crib and he’s 9 months old.

The unique problem we faced here was that when Olivia was in “Sleep Training” she had the room to herself.  Now her and Jake share a room and it’s a whole different story.  When Jake would wake (yes, I know it rhymes) we’d go in and bring him in to bed with us for fear of him waking O and having 2 babies awake at 2:00 in the morning.  So, he’s been in bed with us for the better part of every night since he was born.  Note: No, this is not conducive to an intimate relationship with your wife nor a full night’s sleep for yourself!

The other day we took Jake in for his 9 month appointment.  The Dr. suggested instead of taking Jake out of the crib when he’s crying to take Olivia out.  Enter the “Switcheroo”…taking the baby who sleeps uninterrupted out of the room and leaving the one with problems in!  I never thought of such an idea but it made total sense.  Jake had to get used to sleeping in his crib and he had to learn to soothe himself back to sleep.  So both of the kids went to sleep around 8:00pm last night and around 11:30 Jake woke up.  My wife brought O into bed with us and left Jake.  After what seemed to be about 5 or 10 minutes of crying there was silence.  Did it work?  Was he asleep?  Well, given that he had fallen out of the crib during his previous nap yesterday, see “My Sweet Boy Fell From His Crib”, we were still a bit concerned (although we did lower the crib) that would happen again.  The Result: We woke up around 7:00 this morning without Jake in bed!  He slept through the whole night in his crib!

So to you parents who are in similar situations where 2 children are sharing a room and one isn’t able to fully sleep through the night try taking the one out without the sleep problem.  Now we just have to cross our fingers that Olivia will want to go back to sleeping in her own crib tonight!