One More Thing...

Bailey is now sleeping through the night, in her own room. It was a very, very easy transition.

B has been sleeping in her crib for about three months now. Up until a week and a half ago, that crib was in our room, right next to our bed. At night, we would have to sneak into the room and avoid the creaks in the floors and do everything in the dark and then whisper so quietly in bed that we barely heard each other. And still, she woke up. Every little peep out of her caused me to jump up. I was constantly reinserting the binky into her mouth and checking to make sure that her little fusses didn't turn into all out wails that would wake us all up for hours.

Turns out, all that maintenance was wasted time.

After our trip to Hershey, when Bailey didn't sleep AT ALL in the hotel, we dropped her off at daycare and feverishly moved her into her own room. Our exhausted minds didn't give a shit if she cried all night long - we were going to get some rest in our bed, in our room and WITHOUT being constantly woken up. 6 and a half months was long enough.

(One side note - Bailey is not a breast fed child, and hasn't been eating at night for a long time. She goes to sleep around 7 and doesn't need to eat again until sometime between 6 and 7:30 when she wakes up.)

That night, we wore her out with a little help from Karen (who walked her around and around our house...yep, Bailey is up on her feet regularly!). By the time it was bed, B Bear could barely keep her eyes open. I cuddled her, gave her a bottle and then when the bottle was done, I held her to my chest. She laid her head down on my shoulder, wrapped her fingers into my hair, sucked on her binky and fell fast asleep. When I heard her snoring, I brought her to the crib, laid her down and covered her up. After that, I left the room.

The first few nights were difficult. Around 3, Bailey would wake up and freak out. I could only take listening to her scream for about 45 minutes before I would go hold her until she went back to sleep.

Then, one night, I just got over it. She cried a lot that night. That was the worst night. But the next night, and every night after that, Bailey has slept through the night. She wakes up and fusses for a few minutes every now and then, but she always puts herself back to sleep. She is able to find her binky in the night and has perfected reinserting it into her mouth on her own. Now that we've created a pattern, I have a standing rule of a half hour. If Bailey were to ever cry for longer than a half hour without falling back asleep, I'll go in and check on her. So far, in 10 days, that hasn't had to happen.

And, it's a dream. Kelly and I actually get to talk like normal adults. Our room is our own again. We sleep peacefully. We can laugh and play in bed. We can shower with the door open in the morning without the light bothering anyone. We can get dressed in our bedroom instead of the hot, steamy bathroom. We can talk. Have I mentioned that? We can actually use our voices like normal human adults and have a conversation.

There really are some awesome benefits to having your child get older. It's sad to lose those incredibly needy infant days (for some people, anyway...not really for me, though...but that is a different blog), but it sure is nice to gain back some of that Independence that comes with having an older child.

It's just been wonderful!