I just had THE BEST NIGHT’S SLEEP OF MY LIFE.
TWICE.
No but seriously, I think it might have been.
The thing is, our daughter has been sleeping in bed with us since the day she came home from the hospital. Specifically: in between us.
Co-sleeping is something I know lots of parents do, and many for a lot longer than six months, but still: I’ve been thinking (worrying, actually) about it a lot lately. Partly because I know that the longer you wait to transition a kid into their own bed the harder that transition is, and partly because it really was starting to feel weird, never even being aware if Kendrick was in the bed or not simply because he was so far away. At some point, I do think it’s important to…you know…reclaim that space for just you and your partner. Or at least I knew it was important for us.
But still, I kept putting it off and off and off because I loved having her there with me so much. Smelling her head. Whatever. But beyond that, the truth is that as little sleep as I was getting with Goldie in the bed next to me, I was totally dreading what those first few nights without her would be like. I pictured her crying for hours and hours, me walking up and down the hallway with bottles and pacifiers and such, and then starting my day even more exhausted than I already am. I just didn’t want to pull the trigger; it seemed easier to just muddle through with our imperfect-but-it-works-well-enough situation of having her right next to me, where if she woke up and needed something I could just…give it to her. Without even standing up.
And then, a few days ago, Goldie ramped it up from waking up every three or four hours (which is already a lot at her age) to waking up every one or two, wanting a bottle or a pacifier or to be held. And that is a lot of waking up, especially during a time when they’re supposed to be going in the opposite direction, sleeping 6-8 hours at a stretch. And then on Monday I got sick, and she got a whole bunch of vaccinations, and sometime around one A.M. Tuesday morning when I was jamming my face into a pillow so that I could cough as quietly as possible so as not to disturb the three seconds of sleep she was managing to get, I had enough, and into her own bed she went.
She cried for twenty minutes. And I listened and listened and listened, and then it stopped. The next time she woke up, she cried for five minutes. And the time after that, she cried for one. The two nights that followed, she fussed once or twice, and woke up once for a bottle (which the pediatrician recommended we still give her once a night at this age).
IT IS LIKE PARADISE.
PARADISE, I TELL YOU.
Now, let me be clear: this is not how “crying it out” worked with Indy. It was a long and painful process, made even more painful by the fact that we found it almost impossible to stick to our guns. But they tell you that pretty much everything is easier with the second go-round, and in my experience, it’s totally true. Because when she cries, I know she’s fine, and I also know the cry that means that she’s not fine. And really, that’s all I need to know.
P.S. That owl though.
