Day 1 Was Too Easy....

If you've noticed I've been absent from my blog for a while, I can sweetly blame it on my little boy.

Somewhere along the line, he developed a habit of needing mommy to lay on the floor beside his crib and hold his hand. Then, when we went on vacation and he would have no part of sleeping in a playpen, he had to sleep in his own queen size bed. Unsure that he would fall alseep, Mommy AND Daddy started laying down with him each night AND each afternoon until he fell asleep.

See where this is going? Yes, we did it to ourselves, but it needed to be undone.

When we got back from vacation, Matthew would have no part of sleeping in his crib. So, we hauled our guest bed into his room and he has been sleeping on it ever since. We are in the process of trying to find him his own bed, but there are just sooo many choices out there! Hopefully, we'll agree on one soon.

Anyhow, the night time routine quickly developed into "Mama" and "Dada" "Bed" before he would even attempt to lay down. For the last few weeks he has not wanted to go to bed and has started to use every excuse a 1 year old can think of as to why he should not lay down. Our evenings were including lots of questions, lots of talking, lots of crying and FINALLY, after about 2 hours, he would fall asleep.

By that time, I was exhausted and would walk straight out of his bed and into mine. So, that was my evenings... eat, bath, books, and try to get him to go to sleep for 2 hours. It was draining on all of us and had to stop.

There were lots of people, including Daddy who said "you just have to let him cry"... but I just couldn't do it.. I felt like it was my fault for starting the whole lying down thing, so how could I just abandon him?

So, tonight, we read our book, drank our milk, brushed our teeth and tonight we brought his crib mobile (projects images on the ceiling) into bed for him and told him that Mommy would stay in the room but that I wasn't going to lay in bed with him.

He protested at first, and then thought it was kind of fun that Mommy was sitting on the other side of the room, so why shouldn't he come visit? I gently reminded him that if he didn't get back into bed, Mommy was not going to stay in the room. And so he did. I sat for 10 minutes and then moved myself just outside the door of his room... he asked for me several times and I kept telling him i was right here and that it was time to go to bed.

And you know what? Only 1/2 an hour later, he was fast asleep (upside down in the bed, but oh well, you take what you can get)....

So, I know this had to of been too easy and I'm expecting some of the future nights to not be as easy, but like the song I heard on the way to work this morning reminded me... "It won't be like this for long"... so as we read his books together and cuddle in bed, I'll savour those moments and hopefully still enjoy a moment or two to myself as well.