sleep props

i have read a lot about babies and sleep props. sleep props are defined as things that baby requires in order to fall asleep.  negative sleep props are things that baby requires and is dependent on you to provide - i.e. rocking, nursing to sleep, pacifier, etc.

promise does not have any sleep props. (she does take her paci to bed, but i don't go in to give it back to her when she drops it. and at this age she can put it back in her mouth her self if she wants it.)  but guess what...

this has nothing to do with this post....
but it's cute!

i do!

i have never been a good sleeper.  i quit napping altogether around a year old. as a toddler i couldn't sleep at night and i got spanked every night for months because i wouldn't stay in bed (in my parent's defense, i should have stayed in bed regardless of my ability to sleep because i was told to).  as a young kid i listened to music at night and would get up to turn my tapes over multiple times before i actually fell asleep.  as an older kid (around 8) i started listening to preaching tapes at night and my parents got me a boom box (bahaha! i feel old!) that would play both sides of the tape so i didn't have to get up.  this continued until i was 17 and went to teen mania where i would listed to the tapes with a walkman (again - this is making me feel old!) so that my roommates didn't have to listen to kenneth copeland all night. when i was in college i preferred to sleep in the complete dark and quiet, but it still took me well over an hour to fall asleep.

i have always said that i started sleeping well when i got married. its true, but this week i learned why!  when we got married and moved to tulsa we lived in a big apartment complex. it was always loud in the parking lot. at the time we were going through friends on dvd (jonathon had never seen them before!) so we started watching it as we would go to bed to drown out the people in the parking lot. this is the first time i had ever slept with the tv on, and we have done so ever since. and i have slept (or at least gone to sleep) great for 3 1/2 years now.

lately the tv has been bothering my eyes at night. so a couple nights ago i woke up to feed promise and decided to turn the tv off when i went back to sleep. i laid awake for 3 hours!

so, apparently i cannot sleep without my prop.  i have higher hopes for my children.  so far so good - promise goes to sleep on her own pretty well most days. we still struggle with witching hour a little bit, but she has sleep skills that her mommy has yet to master.