Sleeping Through the Night

So, a couple of months ago, a friend of mine (the lunch lady) offered to answer any questions her readers wanted to ask. Of course I asked her how to get my baby to sleep through the night. Here is her response to my question. She is one of my favorite moms in the world, and has darling children, so don't believe her when she says she's not qualified to give parenting advice.

So, first of all, no fair that she tried to refer me back to my own blog for the answer to my question! But second of all, it's okay. I know the answer now to this most-asked, most-unanswered question. Are you ready for it? The answer is that NOBODY KNOWS THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION. I hope that doesn't offend you. I think there are many partial answers to this question. I think there are many strategies that sometimes work, when a particular child is ready for them to work. I definitely believe that "sleep training," in its many forms, can be very effective. And perhaps, if you do just the right type of sleep training at just the right moment for your particular baby, you will get him sleeping through the night sooner than he otherwise might have done it. Maybe with my next baby I will have a better sense of what works and when to do it. Or maybe not. Having said all that, I am happy to report that Dorian has been sleeping very well the past couple of weeks. He is pretty consistently not waking up until 5 or 6 a.m., at which time I feed him and then he goes back to sleep until 7:30 or 8:00. While I am hesitant to proclaim final success, it really is starting to feel like this might be for real. Of course I would love it if he would just decide to sleep through that 5 a.m. feeding, but right now I am just counting my blessings that we can both still get a couple more hours of sleep afterward.