SLEEP!!!!!!

As you may have noticed from my other posts, I'm not much of a "feelings" blogger. I mostly blog to keep family and friends posted on what's going on with Will. However, I've just experienced a major success and since the only other person at home is sleeping I'm using this as my outlet.

Will used to be what I call a super sleeper. He would sleep through the night and go down easy, it was magic. Perhaps because I took this for granted, at three months old, it started to change and finally really broke down when we were on vacation.

First I have to fess up, I love my son, A LOT. I think because I couldn't hold Will very much for the first few weeks after he was born (he was on a bili light for the jaundice) it was harder for me to put him down once I could hold him. For that reason, and because Will is just that cuddly when he's asleep he never really napped anywhere but in my arms up until this week. When his sleep schedule broke down and it became a super challenge to get him to fall and stay asleep I decided it was time to start thinking about helping Will learn to sleep on his own.

Last night was the first night I put him down to sleep drowsy but pretty much completely awake. We've been working on positive sleep associations for a while, ie. a bedtime routine, a dark quiet room, etc. so I had a base to work with. We did his bedtime routine and then I laid him down. He cried. Horrible is not a strong enough word. I've done a lot of reading, taken a class, and spoken with every Mom I know so I had a pretty good idea what my strategy was going to be but that didn't make it any easier.

I let him cry for five minutes, I did not abandon him, I can't, it's too cruel when he's never been without me. I didn't talk to him but I was there. After five minutes I picked him up, did a short version of our bedtime ritual and laid him back down. He cried for ten minutes. Horrible, horrible, horrible. I picked him up, we did a short version of our bedtime ritual again and laid him back down. He cried again for ten minutes. I know at this point most of the books say to push it to fifteen minutes but that didn't feel right so I picked him up, we did our ritual and I laid him back down. He looked at me, chirped a little and I looked back at him and said softly, "time for sleep," and he was quiet. Not asleep but not crying. It took about five minutes but he eventually closed his eyes and went to sleep.

Today, when nap time came around I was prepared for the same misery. However, we did our ritual; book, nursing/bottle, song, sleep and he laid down and went to sleep. UNBELIEVEABLE!!! It took him a moment to fall asleep but he did it. My little guy did it, all on his own!