Sleep Like a Baby

I have to admit, the term "sleeping like a baby" hasn't meant much to me over my past 3 years of motherhood. Until today, Rhett slept in his crib....ALL NIGHT! This has been one of the many bittersweet moments of being a mother. As I anxiously wait for him to awake, I thought I would share this experience with you all.

As most of you know, we have been a "co-sleeping" family ever since Savannah was an infant. I was never one to be able to leave my child in their crib and let them cry themselves to sleep. To me it just felt completely unnatural. I did try it, but it left my stomach in knots to think that all they want is my comfort. As a mother, what more in life do we want for our children than to be comfortable? As many would say, and remind me all too often, "It's something that they have to learn how to do, they have to learn how to get themselves to sleep." It didn't really mean much to me. Savannah, my oldest, slept in bed with my husband and I until she was one year old. Since I breastfeed, I seemed to get more sleep with them near me. She was in her own bed at one year old and goes to bed fairly well now. Neither of my children are sleepers, and I most definitely do not contribute my failure to let them "cry it out" to that. Some people don't like sleep, I was blessed with two of them. Some studies show that these children can't shut their brains off and consider them "gifted children". I think I'd like to stick with that theory ;)

Rhett, my 7 month old son, has been having a hard time falling asleep near me lately. He's been teething and has also had a cold, so I've been chalking it up to those reasons. Last night he had cried so much since we had been in and out of the car (he HATES his carseat....another issue I'm sure you'll hear about soon) I figured, if he was going to cry even while nursing in bed with me, I might as well put him in his crib and see how it goes. We didn't have much to lose at this point. To my surprise it went great! He cried in his crib from about 8:40 pm to 9:00 pm last night. He woke up at 12 am, I nursed him in the rocking chair and layed him back in his crib at 12:15 am. Well...it is 7:17 am and he's STILL sleeping! I feel overjoyed, yet when I checked on him this morning at 6:30 am I couldn't wait to wrap my arms around his warm little body. I get exhausted carrying this little boy around daily, but I can't wait to start it all over again today. So, as I am happy to be ending the sleepless nights of little feet kicking me, I am so sad that sweet little hands will not be the first to welcome me each morning with a gentle touch on my face.

This and That

So, I'm already not doing a great job of keeping up on this thing! Not that a whole lot has happened in the past couple of days. The kids are keeping me pretty busy, as well as keeping up with my homework for school...oh and keeping up with the house (that's normally last on my list)! We are visiting Savannah's Parent's Day Out class today, I'm excited to meet her new teachers. I'm not sure if she's too excited about it, she's hard to read. Rhett got his first tooth yesterday, now I know why he's been so fussy lately. I'll upload a picture once it's all the way through. Here are some recent photos of the kids taken yesterday, Rhett really enjoyed his apple!