Breakthrough

Sully slept the whole night in his crib!

It's not that he hasn't slept through a night before, but he's never done it in his crib. He's terrified of his crib & mobile for reasons unknown to us. Even as a newborn he would lay and scream at his mobile, never taking his eyes off of it. You would of thought creepy clowns and guns hung from it the way he would look at it.

The other part that has made getting him to sleep in his own crib difficult is that we co-sleep. We started down the route of co-sleeping for reasons both philosophical and personal, but mainly, it was out of convenience. I was still trying to breastfeed at the time and after the c-section it was just easier to have him in bed with us than it was to have to get up some nights. I also liked the feeling of having him near and that sense that if something happened, I was right there to stop it. (I was boarder line obsessed with the idea of SIDS for the first month or so, constantly messing with the poor kid to make sure he was still breathing.)

Fast forward almost 5 months and my sweet little bundle of joy that slept like a log those first few months, does anything but now. He's learned how to stay awake, and will sit up for hours if we let him just babbling and laughing - provoking us to give him the slightest inch of attention to take it and run for the rest of the night. I'm sure I've mentioned that he's also learned to shout, not cry, shout, loudly - sometimes in the middle of the night at us. Its hard not to laugh when we look over at him and he has the biggest grin on his face. It could be worse, right?

Well we're learning Sully isn't what we would exactly call a sound sleeper. He's a thrasher. Shaun and I have both fallen victim more than once to a headbutt, punch, slap or kick in the middle of the night. Over the months we've unsuccessfully tried coaxing him into his crib. We knew this would be hard since he has spent the past 5 months with us, but it's ended up being a huge pain in our asses. I've done the whole count down, go in a pat the butt then put him back in thing. We've done the lay him awake in it thing and the lay him in it asleep thing. We've tried leaving his womb machine on, leaving his baby tunes on and leaving it quiet. We've tried lights on and lights off. We've tried blankets, no blankets, pacifiers, rice bottles, transferring him from our bed - nothing. We've let him scream. But you see our child isn't typically a crier - and when he's wailing at the top of his lungs, his head looks like a cherry tomato about to pop and he's choking, it's hard to listen to your head instead of your heart. So we pick him up.

Shaun got brave last night. After battling for a couple of hours with a baby, he finally turned on his mobile, laid him in his crib, and walked away. I think we both cringed waiting for the shouting and sobbing that usually follows - but it never happened. Its possible Shaun got up with him once during the night, but its also possible I dreamed it since I was so dead-tired-out-of-it.

I woke up this morning to find my son sound asleep, sprawled out taking up as much space as he could - probably because he could. Nobody was there to push him back into the middle because his foot was in their back. I wonder if that felt nice to him in his own little baby head.

I hope that we can keep it going. I kind of feel like if we could accomplish it one night, theres no reason we can't do the same tonight.

I did miss his little feet in my back last night though.