At last

Finally, after 38 years my unscientific theory has been proven right.

Yesterday I saw an article in The Wall Street Journal that said, "Mom's Sleep Beliefs Affect Baby's Nights". I really could never understand why so many babies just didn't sleep through the night, even after almost a year.

By three months, both my boys slept through the night. I always thought that was because I never made it fun for them to be awake in the middle of the night. As infants, when they cried in the middle of the night they got a clean diaper and a bottle and a burp. I never played with them or took them into bed with me. Their needs were taken care of and they went back to sleep.

This article said that mothers who believed in comforting crying babies at night also tended to be more active in trying to soothe them, holding or bringing them into their own beds had babies that were poor sleepers. On the other hand, mothers who believed in limiting their involvement, were less activist at night also had babies who awakened less.

I never ignored the boys, if they had a problem other than hunger or a wet diaper, I was there with them and tried to soothe them. But they only awakened once at night until they were about three months old.

I'm so glad to see that my theory worked.