sttn

No doubt about it, the gap between what our culture teaches us to expect of the sleep patterns of a young child (read them a story, tuck them in, turn out the light, and not see them again for 8 hours) and the reality of how children actually sleep if healthy and normal, yawns widely.

But the first steps to dealing with the fact that your young child doesn't sleep through the night, or doesn't want to sleep without you is to realize that:

* (1) Not sleeping through the night until they are 3 or 4 years of age is normal and healthy behavior for human infants.
* (2) Your children are not being difficult or manipulative, they are being normal and healthy, and behaving in ways that are appropriate for our species.

Once you understand these simple truths, it becomes much easier to deal with parenting your child at night. Once you give up the idea that you must have 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep at night, and view these nighttime interactions with your child as precious and fleeting, you get used to them very quickly.

Ahhh... the idea of sleeping through the night at 7 months.  It is completely normal that he has not adjusted to that yet. 

I am starting to view the nighttime wakings as precious and fleeting as mentioned.  I do gaze at him in the wee hours of the morning (2am) and think, "Someday, this will turn into me waiting up to make sure you have driven home safely, little Lucas."