The Morton Method

Like all parents with a child that sleeps, Joe and I felt a glow of superior parenting when we talked to a parent who complained of a child not sleeping. Jackson was the easiest child at nap time and bedtime, all you had to do was lay him down and he was right to sleep. To this day he will still take a 3 hour nap and go to bed by 8pm. As first time parents, we did not understand the rarity of this behavior and chalked it up great parenting.

With Charlie that glow started to fade. Charlie has always been a challenge when it came to any kind of sleep. Joe and I have tried the classic methods, Ferber and Baby Wise, with no success and found ourselves going back to the previous complaining parents and asking for advice on how to solve this problem.


About two weeks ago, Joe came up with a method of his own. I walked by Charlie's room while Joe was putting him to bed and saw a peculiar thing: Joe lying on the floor next to the crib holding Charlie's hand. Joe later explained he had tried "something new" with Charlie and it had worked! After lying Charlie down awake, Charlie stuck his hand outside of the crib. Joe said that he just reached up and held it. Although Charlie turned and twisted in the bed, his hand stayed firmly in Joe's. This method took about half the normal time to get him to sleep.

I must admit that I was very skeptical of this working; I have witnessed the resistance to sleep this child has exhibited, but I have tried it for the last week and it has worked like a charm.





I know that the "Morton Method" will not be published in the parenting books but it works for us. I must admit something about that little hand reaching out for mine warms my heart.