After nearly 2 years of co sleeping… I began to question if my son would ever sleep on his own. Let’s face it- the 2 year mark was not the beginning of my questions.
E found a place in our bed from the moment he came home with us. As new parents, we came to a place when we needed to get some morsel of sleep, somehow. And so, the family bed was born, a very full family bed. When your babe is tiny, a double isn’t so bad- but when E hit 20lbs at 4 months, our bed felt smaller and smaller.
Waffling back and forth we tried pick up put down and “Cry it out”- once- that didn’t work. How did we get him to sleep? Nursing, rocking, singing, patting… and in our bed. Now, we did indeed question these techniques, even felt a tiny bit embarrassed and at times frusterated. With friends who beamed about their newborn sleeping through the night- and others questioning why it might take more than 5 minutes to put your infant to sleep- we wondered what we were doing wrong.
So what was the deal? I think that our babe was just not a good sleeper, a constant nurser, a cuddler, and someone who doesn’t like to be alone. I have seen some type of miracle in my son over the last month. Upon the pending arrival of baby number 2- we decided we needed to have E out of our bed. It took a week or less for our night time routine to be down to 10-15 minutes, with our toddler staying in his own bed. Now, there were a few nights that were a little different, and a few wakings, and many requests for mommy’s bed… but now- he is sleeping all night. And to top it off- taking 3 hour naps (ish)! Not to mention he looks forward to it.
I never thought I’d see the day- but I somehow feel he has a confidence in our presence- and is easily comforted due to his history 😉
So now, with a new babe in our umm… room… I wonder what course we will take. I pray for some sort of smooth sailing- but hope I am able to be reminded that one day- I may sleep for more than 3 hours at a time…
