slave driver

horray! life-size tayloe is home. we're all very happy.
ok. tell me if you think i'm the devil.
for the last few months, the nipper has slept most nights from 7 p.m. until 5 a.m. at 5 a.m. he'd wake up and i'd go in and rock him back to sleep. he'd then snooze until 7:15 or so. it was a habit leftover from the 5 a.m. feeding days.
at first i didn't really mind. i was happy to have a baby who's golden enough to sleep 10 hours straight.
but then, i kinda started minding. 5 a.m. is really early. and he obviously wants to get the full 12 hours in or he wouldn't be going back to sleep. so why not eliminate the interuption?
while tayloe was gone, i decided to tough love him a couple of mornings and see if he'd get the hint. after two mornings, i shaved off an hour.
so now he wakes up at 6 a.m. which is better. but it's still dark. and all three of us are still cranky upon waking. make that all four - even wolly seems put out.
so i have it in my mind to work on that final hour. that's mainly because even when he wakes up at 6 a.m. he still wants to go back to sleep, which he now does in our bed. i've solved one problem and created another.
i also feel a little guilty. 11 hours is really good. 11 hours is amazing. and the final hour in our bed isn't so bad. i could do without the whops in the face as he's falling back to sleep & the baby whines, but it's mostly kinda sweet.
but then i think about that final hour of sleep. aaaahhhh. it would be so good, wouldn't it? just to cap a good night's rest off? and i'd be happy to invite him into our bedroom at 7 for a morning bottle and some love. i'd even be in a good mood about it.
jeeze louise. you know, i always thought i'd have this very tender & soft approach to parenting. but the truth is i'm very set on establishing bounderies. this scares me a little bit.
hm, interesting. i just looked over at the baby. he's spun himself around in all directions on the floor, spit up in the process and is now slapping his hand around in the mess.
how pretty.