Mama knows best

I will start this off by saying that Jocelyn likes her dad way more than she likes me. It's okay, Hubby-poo is great with children. Me, well, not so much. Obviously I can provide basic needs, I take great care of her and I try to entertain her, and I'm sure that Jocelyn loves me. But she LOVES her daddy. He has a knack for entertaining her that I can't even hope to emulate. And while she loves to cuddle with me, she loves when Hubby-poo holds her in ways where she can see his face (ways that my hands are too small for, sadly). Yeah, I married a guy who is an amazing father. It's pretty awesome.

But despite all of this, I don't usually have the heart to tell my dear hubby that I know how to take care of our girl better than he does. I don't know if it's instincts or just time spent, but I generally know when things are a good idea or bad idea. One example is when Mike rocks Jocelyn down to a nap in the evening. This is a new activity, as she wasn't a napper in her younger days (literally days at this point). And I think he likes the idea of her falling asleep in his arms. However, this throws off her nighttime sleep. But I don't want to be a nag, and he's the one who will suffer more the next day if it messes with her nighttime sleep, so I figure I should just let him come to the conclusion on his own (as of last night, he has).

I think I have mentioned Jocelyn has a bedtime routine, and it takes us a while to get her to sleep. One of these times we will get her down in under an hour, but now it takes 3-4 hours. No exaggeration. Last night we thought she was down, but as soon as I put her into bed she woke up. Mike wanted to just leave her and let her cry herself to sleep. Now, I know that my baby is both high-need and strong-willed, and can cry way longer than we can tolerate it. But he's been practically begging me to let her cry on her own when she can't be consoled.

After about 5 minutes, when her cry went from a whimper to a scream, he gave up and went to get her. And after he couldn't soothe her for about 20 minutes, I think that maybe he gets that she is persistent. We had to stay up and try to soothe her long enough for me to build up some milk so I could try to nurse her down again. Anyway, he's all about skipping the evening nap now. And maybe he will get that this is a child who needs to be picked up.

Just to reiterate, though... he's an amazing father. I don't mean to imply in any way, shape or form that he is anything less than awesome. It's just that mama knows best :-P.