The Baby Whisperer has earned my eternal gratitude. It was her middle-of-the-road approach (i.e. not making the baby cry it out, but also not letting the baby sleep in my lap) that got Z into her bed, and it’s been mostly successful with Maverick.

Mostly.

The little stinker is DETERMINED to flip onto his stomach. It’s like his Life Goal as soon as I put him in the crib. Head over, swing the swaddled legs over, onto the side, then onto stomach. And then what? He snuffles and complains because he has a face-full of organic mattress. Yay, fun! Let’s do it again as soon as Mama puts me on my back.

What would the Baby Whisperer do? I borrowed her big book from the library: The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems, which is a pretty ambitious title until you read the parenthetical part: (By Teaching You How to Ask the Right Questions).

But I haven’t read it yet.

I do know she’s okay with putting babies on their sides to sleep.

Sorry, I’m far too paranoid, and too plagued by nightmares of SIDS, to try that. If Homes & I had our way, we’d be attaching Velcro to the sheets and to the back of Maverick’s swaddler. Duct tape has been another tempting solution.

What would the Baby Whisperer do? I don’t know, and I might never get around to reading this library book because I found 189 things I want to fix in my manuscript.

So I stand at the head of Maverick’s crib, patiently pushing him back into place. Sometimes I let him get all the way onto his stomach, because, I admit it, he looks kinda funny that way, like a lost slug or a baby mental patient in a straight jacket, and his snorts never cease to amuse me.

I don’t let him snort for long, though, before I flip him over again.

And again and again.

[Update: I wrote this on Sunday, then experimented with NOT swaddling him on Monday and Tuesday. Epicfail. He’d get so mad about losing his thumb/fist that he’d freak out even more. So, back to swaddling.]