Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Rocking to sleep

When Julia was a baby, I would nurse her to sleep while I rocked her. After I finally weaned her from the bedtime nursing (which was the last to go), I still rocked her for awhile. Then I just started putting her straight to bed without being rocked. This lasted for a couple months until she got sick this winter and just wanted held. After she got over being sick, she still wanted to be rocked before putting her in her bed. I finally decided that she is only going to want me to do this for so long, so I might as well enjoy it.

Normally, I will rock her for about 10 minutes and then tell her it is time for her to go in her crib. BUT on very rare occasions she will actually fall asleep while I am rocking her. It is so rare that she does this, that I find myself rocking her for 15 minutes or longer after she has gone to sleep, because I find holding her while she is asleep such a precious thing. I am trying to soak up all that I can. I know she is quickly getting to the age where she is no longer going to want to do things like this.

Rocking her is quite funny, because she usually has request for which songs I sing to her (I sing to her while I rock her). Most of the time she sings along with me. I have found that Amazing Grace is about the only song she will actually fall asleep to. I think that is because I sang it to her over and over and over for hours on end when she was in the mist of colic and I was trying to get her to calm down.

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