Sometimes I wonder if we’re doing anything right. At 4 AM the other night, after four unsuccessful hours of trying to get Evan to stay asleep in the crib, I gave up. I deliberately fed him into a stupor and plunked him where he’s happiest – milk dripping from his chin, snugged into his carseat.

The baby whisperers heckled in my head.

Ooooh! That’s the worst thing she could do! She picked him up when he cried, did you see that! He didn’t need to eat, but she fed him anyway! And he’s in his carseat – horrors! He’ll never sleep on his own! He’ll be getting her up a dozen times a night until he’s fifteen!

Sometimes the pull of five or six hours of sleep is just too strong, no matter what the books say. So I cheat, and work dubious magic. What’s the verdict? “Dangerous territory” or “whatever works”? The jury is still out.

Nevertheless, four out of every five baby whisperers agree: six months old is the turning point.

Last chance to tighten up your routine and give up your shortcuts. Until then, they say, you do whatever it takes to make a crying baby happy (or sleepy). Because before six months, everything is ‘I Need’. After six months, you get more ‘I Wants’. A simple but critical distinction that changes the game and brings on development of The Pout, The Screech and The Tantrum. Hence the need to begin nurturing the ‘self-soothing’, ‘low-maintenance-sleeping’ child. Whatever that means.

It’s like a diet – starting tomorrow, I’ll do it by the book. I’ll get my headstart so that six months doesn’t sneak up and bite us in the ass when we’re not looking. Tomorrow is another night, fresh with no mistakes in it. But it’s amazing how fast another month goes by when you’re find reasons every day to start being righteous tomorrow.