To sleep . . . to dream . . .

It's hard to believe, but in a little over a month, Gus will turn 1. I just can't get my head around it. I still remember vividly the first day back from the hospital. Emily and I sat in the living room with days-old Guster, and I remember thinking, "holy schnikes, what now?" Fortunately there wasn't too much time to think about things, as infant Gus proved to be quite the task-master:

Now it's time for me to sleep. But not in my crib. Not in the bassinet. No, not the car seat! On you. On your chest.

Now it's time to eat. Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Good God, where is the food?!

Ok, now it's time to sleep again. Really? The crib, huh? You really think so? Yeah, that's what I though. Lie back and be still, please.

And so on. To be sure the first month clearly hinted at what our biggest challenge of the first year would be. Sleep would be the war. Where, when, and for how long would be the battles.

WHERE
As faithful readers of this blog know, Guster was not a fan of any sleeping destination that wasn't:

A. Mommy's chest
or
B. Daddy's chest

which was all fine and good when he weighed a mere 8 pounds. But as Gus grew, so did our backaches. And so the first battle was waged. We tried to get him to sleep anywhere -- his crib, his car seat, the bassinet, the stroller bassinet, the papa-san swing borrowed from our friends -- and nothing worked. I used to joke at the time -- "Brand new crib, $500 on MasterCard. Stroller, $500 on MasterCard. Swing, $100 on MasterCard. Having a baby boy that won't sleep anywhere but your chest -- priceless."

Eventually Gus relented, and started sleeping in his crib.

WHEN
Ah, bedtime. After some trial and error, we've eschewed a strict bedtime in favor of a range -- Gus goes to sleep for the night between 7:30 and 8:00.

FOR HOW LONG
The sleep war equivalent of The Battle of the Bulge. Every time we thought we were winning, something would throw us for a loop. He actually started sleeping through the night relatively early, but then he got his first winter-long cold, and later developed his first ear infection which made sleeping through the night difficult. Recovered, he would get back on routine, but the wake up time would get progressively earlier. 6:00am, 5:50, 5:35, 5:15, 5:00, 4:40! Just as mysteriously, Gus would reset the clock to something later, like 5:40am. On good nights he either wouldn't get up at all or would wake only once during the night. On bad nights, mom and dad would see every hour from 11:00pm to 5:00am. Not good times.

As my guest blogger wrote in the last post, Gus seemed to go on a sleep strike while I was in Europe. The strike did not cease when I got back and after a few bad nights and with Gus' first birthday looming in the distance, I made the case for the secret weapon: "Tough love." Others know it by a name that includes a certain verb that involves tears and a word that means the opposite of in, but I choose to define the term with love. To borrow a phrase from a song from dad's favorite band -- we were going to "Attack with love." My reluctance to talk tears here doesn't mean that no tears were shed when we unveiled the Tough Love. No, tears were shed, and while most were from the G-Man, I can't say all of them were. But after 30 minutes or so, the brave little boy put himself back to sleep. And slept until 6:30am. The next night there was less than 5 minutes of crying, and again Gus awoke around 6:30am.

We couldn't be prouder of the little man, and I am happy to say that as Gus closes in on cake-smashing day, the battle -- and the war -- appear to have been won.

Check out the little man below:

Gettin' into trouble
G on the floor, U in hand
Where's that S?
Uh-oh. Caught.
Put in the the pie-hole
Nice hair
Standing tall (28")
Sitting with Dad.