I am a bit embarrassed by the fact that this is my THIRD post today – but I’m not embarrassed enough not to post it anyway.  HA!

Matthew had his 9 month well baby check today – and he is doing very well.  He is rather proportional when it comes to weight (64%) and height (67%), but he has a huge head (97%).  We knew all of this already – this is how he’s been since he was born.  We talked about his eating since we’re pretty much raising him on a paleo diet (and our doc fully supports that – yay!), his development (he’s a bit ahead on his motor skills – I credit baby gym for this), teething (still only 2 teeth and the others aren’t making an appearance just yet), vaccinations (she is very open to the alternative schedule which is why we chose her as our doc), and his sleeping.

I love Matthew’s doctor – she really believes that the parents know best and supports what they want to do.  She did say that there are a couple things that she does not believe should be a fight between parents and children, which are eating and sleeping.  I wasn’t sure what she meant by this and feared that she meant that we should let Matthew call the bedtime shots.  Quite the contrary.  She feels that parents need to make the decisions that are best for them when it comes to eating and sleeping and conform their babies to those decisions.  In other words, if you want your baby on a paleo (or vegetarian, vegan, etc.) diet, then do it and just make sure they’re getting the vitamins and minerals they need.  If you want your baby sleeping through the night (and she agreed that he should be at this age), then she suggests the Ferber method and said to stick it out.  I told her that I’ve tried everything and she said that when her patients try various techniques, they usually end up with Ferber because it’s the one that works the best and most consistently.

I told her how things are going and she said that she does have some patients who get worse before they get better with the Ferber method and to keep on keeping on.  She did say that I need to be prepared for this to take a full two weeks.

OK.

So I’m going to keep on keeping on.  I started tonight at 8:19 when Matthew went to sleep in his crib as I covered him with his blankie.  I woke him up from his nursing slumber and laid him down as he cried a bit.  I patted his back just a little, tucked him in, and said goodnight.  He was asleep before I shut the door behind me.  Call me crazy, but I’m hoping for a decent night.