Separation anxiety... and relief

After several nights of broken sleep and the insanity that follows, we decided we had to take some real decisive action to find a solution. There is a little bit of translation needed for this as the UK/US terms for baby beds are slightly confusing. Since birth Baby had been sleeping in a crib (cradle in American) in our room, but we also have the nursery set up with his cot (crib in American) which we were planning to move him to when he outgrew the crib. I had been putting him down in the cot for naps recently, to get him used to it, and he seems to like it and settles well in it. He also has a lot of toys and things in it now. So we decided it might soon be time to move him into his own room but I didn't want to do it while he was up so many times during the night, it's a bigger effort to feed him then.

In the last week or so he had got worse and worse with bedtime, not wanting to settle down at all, waking up crying soon after being put to bed, and waking frequently through the night. This is after he had been sleeping through the night since he was around 2 months old, he used to settle himself when we put him down in the crib awake and then sleep until morning. But now he seemed uncomfortable and he is definitely showing teething signs so we put the frequent waking down to that. Plus, all his friends seem to be doing the same hing. The only time he would sleep for a decent stretch is if I brought him into the bed with us, but that is definitely not something we want to make a regular thing of.

I wasn't sure it would work but I wanted to let him sleep in the cot in his own room for a night and see how he did. We came to this decision two nights ago when we had had enough! I figured if he freaks out what's the difference, we're not sleeping either way! But you know what? That first night was perfect, he slept 11 hours. Hallelujah!! He is just much more comfortable, with more room to move I think. He likes to move his arms around and the crib had got just too small for him, we could hear his hands bang against the bars when he threw his arms out. Last night he did wake up for a feed around 2am but hey, I can live with that. What a good boy. I may have to get him a nice new cot mobile as a reward!

It was a huge milestone for me though. I had a "my little baby is growing up" moment in a big way. Of course I was a little anxious too. I mean, he was only in the next room and it's not like our place is huge but I had to have the baby monitor turned up high sitting on my bedside cabinet, right by my head! And you'd think I'd be catching up on sleep but I was up a couple of times in the night, sneaking into his room to check on him. I kind of miss him being at the end of our bed too. We would peer at him constantly and now the crib is empty. On the up side, Hubby and I no longer have to tiptoe around in the dark and whisper for fear of waking him when we go to bed.

Ah sleep, sweet sweet friend. Welcome back!