movin' out

We accidentally put Kyle in his crib for the night for the first time on Sunday, and he slept like a champ. How does that happen, you ask?

Kyle was tired. When this boy gets tired at night, nothing can keep him up. Which is the complete opposite of his napping habits. At night we can vacuum, watch TV, do dishes, Penny can bark… and this boy won’t stir. But if I put him down for a nap – even if he’s been yawning, rubbing his eyes, can’t take another minute without sleep and out like a light on my lap– if I put him down and so much as fasten my bra strap in the same room as him he is WIDE awake and good luck getting him back to sleep. I even woke him up from a nap once by getting up from the glider, and my knee cracked. That was a fun afternoon.

But on Sunday night, he was DONE. He was changed, swaddled, fed, half asleep, ready to hit the hay. I took him into our room to start our bedtime ritual, and out of the corner of my eye I spotted a bug. A huge, gross, bug that I was no way going to sleep knowing that he was roaming our bedroom, ready to crawl on my baby’s face as soon as I closed my eyes.

As Brian proceeded to tear our room apart looking for the unwelcomed guest (and by tearing our room apart, I mean taking the bed off the frame, pulling out dresser drawers, the whole 9 yards), I was left with a tired, tired boy who needed to go to bed. So in his crib he went and there he stayed while we scoured our room. Finally, after an hour-long hunt, the bug was vacuumed to death and the room was back to normal. But by now, Kyle was deeeeep asleep. In his bedroom.

We didn’t think we were ready for the transition, but by then I was so exhausted and Kyle looked so peaceful that we decided to leave him be. We stared at him on the monitor for a while and decided to finally try and get some sleep, with our baby in the other room.

It was really hard going to sleep that night without the sounds of his little snores and whimpers right next to my bed. We felt like something was missing! Brian had even a rougher time than me, going in to check on him quite a few times before we finally closed our eyes.

That night, Kyle slept in his crib from 9:30 pm – 6:30 am, waking up only once to nurse! At 6:30 I found him all smiles in his crib, just looking around like he’d been sleeping there all along, and thinking what’s the big deal mom? I brought him back in our room to eat, and then he slept 2.5 more hours there next to me.

The second night wasn't so easy - he slept the same hours, but woke up twice to nurse. This may not seem like it would make too much of a difference, but it really does. Sleeping 10-1 and 1:30-6:30 is much, much easier than sleeping 10-1, 1:30-4 and 4:30-6:30. Hopefully tonight we'll be back in line with night one, because sleep training is not something I want on my radar yet!