How $10.80 saved my sanity!

One of the hardest challenges as a parent can be to teach your baby the difference between day and night. The day is for playing (and a couple naps) and the night is for SLEEPING! Some babies catch on quickly and for other babies, it takes some long nights and many futile attempts before your baby will sleep through the night.

Our little Espresso's problem was that he has (still is) never been good at comforting himself. If something upsets him, I have an unhappy (crying, fussing) baby until I can find something to distract him not momentarily, but consistently for about a period of 10 minutes. Then it's safe to say that he can continue on (hopefully happily) playing.

At 2 months, our Espresso was sleeping almost through the night. We would put our son to bed at 9 and he would wake once during the night, usually around 3 am, but would go back to sleep quickly after something to eat and would sleep until 7 or 8 in the morning. I thought this was great and figured he would just sleep longer and longer and night as he got older until he was sleeping ALL the way through the night. BUT...that didn't happen.

When our Espresso was 5 months, he decided that he would start this new routine of waking up at 1 or 2 am, cry, act like he was hungry but not eat. It was his ploy to have mommy hold him and comfort him back to sleep. It didn't take ME too long to figure this out and I told my hubby that we were going to put an end to this. Enter Chester.

On July 4, 2008, we bought our Espresso his first teddy bear. He cost $10.80! According to my hubby, EVERY boy needs a teddy bear. We christened our Espresso's teddy bear, Chester and Chester sat in the corner of our Espresso's crib patiently waiting until our Espresso was ready for some teddy lovin'.

Chester was introduced as our Espresso's comfort, rather than his mommy or daddy. During those first few nights of introducing Chester as his comfort, our Espresso had the 'caffeine' (crying fit) of 100 lattes! He's a rather persistent and determined little boy. Thankfully, after two hard nights of enduring cries, yells and blood curdling screams, our Espresso cuddled up with his teddy Chester and this began our son seeking out Chester, rather than mommy, to help him fall back to sleep. The rest is history and I have my sanity thanks to the consistent 7-9 hours of sleep I now get every night thanks to Chester.

Every night when we put our Espresso to bed, we place Chester by our little boy's side and he grabs Chester and gives him a ferocious hug. At times, I have watched from the door to our son's room as he reaches out and grabs Chester and cuddles up with him. It is one of the sweetest sites for a parent (or anyone for that matter) to see. Chester is doing everything a teddy bear should do for a boy: offering love, companionship AND giving a mommy and daddy a good nights sleep!

I love you Chester! :)













Hubby with his teddy bear he had as a boy and my Espresso & Chester.