Clark is in his own bed!

(written 6 July)

My little boy is growing up too fast!

He is officially sleeping in his own bed. ALL OF THE TIME!!! You see, Clark has slept in our bed since we first brought him home. I never wanted a baby in the bed with me but Travis would cuddle him and snuggle him to sleep and Clark wouldn’t sleep in the basinet that we had for him unless he was swaddled and then he would only sleep for an hour or so and wake up. Then we had to travel to and from the states, twice, for weeks at a time and on those trips Clark slept with me because he barely fit in the travel bed and he wasn’t happy about being in the damn thing anyway. Then it just got to the point that it was easier for all involved. Breast feeding in the middle of the night meant that all I had to do was roll over and pop a boob in his face, too easy. So seven and a half months have gone by and Travis and I have not slept alone a single night. That is until this past Tuesday!

Wednesday was the fourth of July and that meant that Travis was off from work, he was also going to be off the following day and then again on Saturday and Sunday, so I figured that this would be the perfect time to implement the new sleeping arrangements. I have been making Clark nap in his crib for a few weeks now, ever since he learned to crawl because I’m afraid that I won’t make it to him after he wakes up before he takes a header off the bed, so I know that he is capable of sleeping in there. Monday night I snuggled him as much as possible because I knew that it would be the last night I would have him in my bed and let me tell you, neither of us slept that great. There was lots of rolling and thrashing going on so come Tuesday I was more than ready to take the plunge!

The night came and we put the baby to bed in his room with the door open to both of our rooms so that I could get to him quickly if needed. I turned the baby monitor on and muted it (we’ve got a super monitor with a camera on it so I can see him all of the time), I figured if I heard him rolling over then I would be jumping up repeatedly and if he were awake and crying I could hear him from the crib. He slept from 830 till 1030, I fed him and put him back in his crib, he fussed a little but then fell back to sleep, roughly an hour later he woke up and threw a dang fit. This time I knew that he wasn’t hungry, that he was just mad that he wasn’t in the bed with us, so I let him fuss. He cried for about 20 minutes, IT BROKE MY HEART!!! But then he was fast asleep.

Around 4AM he cried out for me and I went in and fed him again, then I put him back down in his crib and he fussed for about 30 seconds before falling back to sleep. I headed back to my bed and figured that we would all get about two more hours of sleep before the day would begin. ZZZZZZzzzZZZzzzZZZZzzz

Then… I woke up, Travis woke up, we both reached for our watches, Travis got to his first and he said, “HOLY SHIT! IT’S TEN-O-CLOCK!” I jumped out of the bed, “is he alive?” and ran to Clark’s room. That little bugger was still knocked out! I cannot tell you how refreshed I felt! That was the first time in over eight months that I have had more than four consecutive hours of sleep. WAAAWHOOOO!!!!

I am happy to report that it wasn’t beginners luck either. Clark has successfully slept in his bed each night since. YIPPY!!!

(though he is still waking up every three to four hours...)