Better Late Than Never

Less than a week shy of your seventh month birthday and your nursery is FINALLY complete!! We have been anxiously awaiting (for months now!) the completion of your window seat and valance. Well, this week it was finally finished. We spent Saturday putting the finishing touches on your room and prepared it for your use - it was the night, you were both going to sleep in your big boy cribs.

Bedtime has been our easiest routine (thanks in part to the NICU), so I anticipated a seamless and easy transition.

Ha!

This may have been the most difficult night in my short parenting career. Around 4:30 your daddy left for a night out with his dad for Father's Day. And from that moment on, we just weren't too happy and cried pretty constant from 4:45 - 7 (few breaks for some giggling / playtime, couple five minute catnaps, 5 minutes of peace listening to the fountain - interrupted by insane spit-up / hysteria, but overall, lots of unhappy babies in this house). I'm gonna blame it on the peaches (new fruit!).

 

Around 7:00 I tackled, no, I successfully tackled, bath-time on my own. We were all giggles, splashing, and loving life again - hallelujah! But as quickly as the giggles started, that's how fast they faded. Once out of the tub, Ryan, I could not move fast enough to get you dressed to keep you from rolling over!

Bedtime routine (medicine, clean diapers, jammies, bedtime story / singing, and then nursing) usually takes place in our room. Since we were making the switch to your room, I decided to move the whole routine next door. I figured if we were doing the same things we always do just in a different room, it would surely \make for a super smooth transition. And again, I say, "Ha!"

Book #1: I'll Love You Forever. One of my favorites, but have not yet read to you because I knew I would be a boohooing goofball. Yep, four pages in I believe, and I was tearing up!

So for book two we changed gears to read Let's Go to the Zoo. We are heading to the zoo for the first time in a couple weeks, so I thought we would start preparing. Well, page one and the sound of the seal did you in Wiley. You were hysterical with Mommy's animal sounds and kicked the book all the way to the floor. So, that was the end of that book! (And great foreshadowing of things to come!)

Finally, on to nursing. You boys typically nurse for about twenty minutes come bedtime, get nice and sleepy, "hop" into bed, do a little sweet cooing and talk yourselves to sleep. Easy-peasy.

Nope. The second you hit your cribs you knew, "Nope, this isn't right Mommy. Get me outta here!!" And you let me know it!

Ryan, right now you are our better sleeper. You give us great cues to tell us when you're sleepy (even during the day), we plop you into your rock n play, and you are out almost instantly. Nope. Not tonight. And Wiley, you still like your snuggles and hate when I leave you during the day - at night, you do great too. Yep. Not tonight.

For the next hour or so it was a terrible battle between screams, pathetic little whimpers, and the sounds of you almost falling asleep until....repeat and start over! Ryan, you were on this vicious cycle for only about twenty minutes. Wiley, I would come in, talk to you, soothe you, but the second I started walking away, your whimpers started.

At one point, I just sat on my bed and cried, listening to your sad little sobs! Terrible. It was just terrible.

Finally, I couldn't take it. It was now 9:45 and Wiley you were still awake! So, out of your crib you came. I decided to nurse you again. We went back to my room and you nursed for another 15 minutes. I was going to just give up and put you back in your rock n play for tonight. But after 15 of nursing, you were sleepy-eyed and smiley again. I decided to give it just one more shot. Into your bedroom we went. I whispered my nightly good night phrase and kisses and put you down.

And guess what?? YOU DID IT!!

And now, here it is, Sunday morning, and you're both still sleeping in your own cribs! (couple wake-up calls throughout the night, with some quick 5/10 minute nursing sessions, but no fussing after, and right back to sleep on your own). Way to go boys!

 

You are so proud of yourselves...and we are too!!