Oprah is apparently planning a show about baby shower gifts - good and bad - this is what I submitted. {If you gave us stuffed animals, please don’t be offended, they didn’t really go to the dog!}

Baby showers bring out the best and worst of people’s creativity! Why do people insist on giving newborn babies stuffed animals? What in the world is a newborn going to do with 20 stuffed ducks, bears and lambs? They can’t go in the crib because they are a suffocation hazard. Even if moms save them until the child gets older (where are we supposed to store them?) the ones with the plastic eyes and noses become a choking hazard. The best solution for the stuffed animals we received was to give them to the dog as toys.

One other gift that made a huge difference at 2 a.m. is the bottle warmer. Think about it when your child is starving in the middle of the night and you need a bottle sooner versus later who has time to wait for the tap water to warm up? I never wanted to use the microwave to warm a bottle (experts recommend against this practice) so for me waiting and waiting and waiting for the tap water to get to the right temperature was awful. {plus the sound of the running water always makes me have to run to the bathroom!} So with the bottle warmer, it takes approximately two minutes to warm the bottle to the perfect temperature to quench your starving babies hunger!

For some reason, nap time has suddenly become a huge battle in our house. Allison has decided that she no longer needs to nap (or sleep at night for that matter). Our sweet little girl, who started sleeping through the night at just 12 weeks old, has now become a sleep tyrant.

It used to be that when she got that sleepy, droopy eyes, staring off into space look we could simply lay her down in her crib and she’d peacefully drift off to dreamland. In the last week or so she has decided that instead of a peaceful calm approach to sleep that’s it’s better to scream at the top of her lungs until exhausted she collapses in a mound on top of her blanket.

This same scenario plays out each evening as well. We had a great routine of bath, bottle and then bed. We literally would rock her for two to three minutes and then put her down to sleep. She’d sometimes play and babble a little but not for too long before falling into the sleepy bliss.

We’ve tried rocking, humming, singing, walking and even just letting her play until she crashes to no avail. We have once again consulted our favorite sleep book, “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child,” and are following the plan to a tee. Unfortunately that means letting her work out the issues herself. We have to maintain a consistent approach and close the doors so that the screaming doesn’t get to us.

I just don’t understand why she takes such offense to sleeping. Lord knows that if someone would let me curl up on their lap while they sang to me, rocked me and patted my bottom I would happily drift off to dreamland in a matter of seconds!