This too shall pass?

One of the most interesting things I've found in all my 365ish days of motherly experience is how once you feel you have something down, it changes. This comes in many forms, but sleep keeps being the reoccurring one in our lives.

Thanks to the book On Becoming Babywise, Brody was a great sleeper fairly early (6-8 weeks?) albeit a setback at 5 months and another when he was sick from too much cake on his first birthday. He has slept from 7:30-7:00  for most of his 13 months of life, which was amazing. We became so accustomed to this schedule that we (ok, mainly I) became spoiled. We'd get to watch a movie after he went to bed and then I slept in until 7 or so. But in the past month or so, this pattern has been upset. We now put him down around 7 PM, he squirms and talks to himself until 8, and then he wakes up between 5:45 and 6:15. This wouldn't be a big deal except (a) I am not a morning person in the least and (b) he is an absolute nightmare come 7:30 or 8 AM, which is way too early for a first nap!

So then comes what I like to call "the major decision." Do we change something until we fix it? (In this case, do we put him down later? Earlier? Change his nap schedule? Leave him in his crib longer in the morning?) Or do we just let it be and hope it passes?

I once said (or, probably more accurately, heard elsewhere and now claim it as my own), "Raising children is a science experiment gone wrong." Now before you go blasting me for being a mother who thinks her child is a mere scientific experiment, hear me out... In a carefully controlled science experiment (thank you Intro to Bio), you change each variable until you get the desired result... or something like that (no, I'm nowhere near a scientist nor will I ever be). But with a child, a human subject nonetheless, you don't have the time, patience, or energy to isolate each and every variable until you find the exact mixture/compound/thing that works! And then when you do find whatever works, something else changes. I hear this sort of pattern does not stop until...the child is 18? Ah... motherhood