It sounded like a good idea at the time...

Recently, during a discussion concerning raising children, something I decided I had a mild interest in cocking one ear towards given my present situation, the subject of how to get your infant child to go to bed (and to sleep), at a time of your choosing rather then the child’s. This is certainly something I was interested in as our nightly ritual is waiting on the couch, waiting for young Master Aidan to fall asleep so that we can then relocate him to the nocturnal confines of his crib – only to have him wake up anywhere from 2-5 hours later, but that’s a different issue.

So, as I continued to listen to the conversation, it appeared to be mutually agreed upon by those recent yet experienced parents participating in the discussion, that putting the child in his/her crib at the specified time, say eight o’clock, and simply allowing them to cry themselves to sleep quickly established a nightly routine where the child fell asleep without much fuss.

As the adage goes, you get what you pay for (this being free, eavesdropped obtained advice).

Being tired of waiting up until anywhere between ten and eleven each night for Aidan to fall asleep, I decided that it might be worth a few nights of crying for a long term gain of an established routine. It had worked for others – so they said – and if it worked for them, chances are it would work for us too. So I carted the semi conscious offspring up to his crib, placed him in his nocturnal crate, and covered him up with his blanket. Aidan immediately rolled him self over and stood up against the side of the crib. I picked him up, put him back down in his crib, carefully covered him backup, quickly exited the area and returned downstairs to the near immediate crying of young son number one.

The noise coming out of Aidan’s room ranged from, sniffling whining to something akin to what must have been heard during the battles the crusades. After approximately five minutes, I returned to the scene of the crime. Poor Aidan was all red-faced, tears running down the side of his cheeks, laying down, on his knees, face buried in his blanket. I picked him up and immediately found that his night sleeper was fairly damp – much damper then five minutes of crying could have produced… I investigated further… to find that poor Adian had cried so hard that he had thrown up – all over his blankets, all over his bedding.

What a terrible parent I am! How could I have put my son through this traumatic experience? What was I thinking? Nothing quite stabs you through the heart then having your 10 month old child cry so hard he throws up. I don’t think we’ll be trying that again any time soon. Man, I hope we work out the bugs on version 1.0 before version 2.0 is placed into production on May 2nd.