Little Man with a Big Boy Life.... =)

As of sunday morning, our little man has spent an entire week in his own room. To be honest, I never thought that it would happen at 7 months. I come from the school of thought that if you meet your child's needs from the very start, they grow up to be more independent and confident. I see no reason to force a baby to be a grown-up when they are just wee little things that couldn't survive on their own in the first place. I don't think infants manipulate, I think they simply express how they feel. That is all they know.

With that being said, I realized over the past month that we were disturbing Ryden's sleep at night. Up until that point he had been sleeping well, in his crib in our room, unless I was nursing him (then he was in our bed). There were also nights (about 1 1/2 months ago) that he was teething pretty bad, waking up every hour crying, and on those nights, he spent almost all of it next to me in bed. This allowed him to sleep for 3-4 hours. However, with his sleeping getting back to normal, I noticed a change. Whenever he was rustling in his sleep, if either of us made a peep, he would wake up. Whether it was simply me tossing and turning, Ilsa making her bed, Eric snoring or anything else minor. The whole point of Ryden sleeping with us is so that he could get the best sleep possible and to be secure. Also it really made nursing in the middle of the night a lot more convenient. Since I am following his cues, I realized that he would probably be better in his own room. I felt that he was old enough to be pretty safe throughout the night. At his age, the chance if SIDS had dropped drastically. and so we did.

I am happy to say that everything has worked out fantastic. He is sleeping wonderfully and waking up far less than usual. What was once rustling that turned into waking up is now just rustling. I think we have even made it to nursing just once at night. When he wakes in the morning, anywhere from 6am to 7ish am, Eric goes and gets him and brings him into our bed. Then he will usually nurse back to sleep until we all wake up together. and for anyone that has never had the pleasure of waking up next to their amazing little baby, I suggest trying it. It is one of the sweetest things in the world and I will hold in my heart for the rest of my life. They are only babies for such a short period of time and I think all of their fears should be met immediately and that they should never worry about being alone or being scared. We have enough of that to do as adults.


Right now, Ryden falls asleep for both of his naps and for bed all by himself. He has been doing this for about the past two months. Sometimes he passes out the moment you set him down and the other times he might coo to himself for a couple of minutes before he dozes off. If for any reason he cries for more than a minute than one of us goes in to soothe him (holding him and rocking him- maybe even a kiss). We know that he has no problem going to sleep, so he must obviously be upset, hungry, overly tired or just needs a hug. Either way we are there for him, and that is all that matters. Sometimes I even still nurse him to sleep and let him nap on me. Because I love him and it makes him happy. That is the best I can do and believe it or not, the next time he needs to go to sleep I can put him down awake, by himself, and he goes right to sleep. So, for anyone that says you can only nurture from afar, or you will ruin (SPOIL) your baby....... they are wrong! You can spoil with "things" but not with "love". So, if he has a rough growth spurt or painful teething that keeps him up at night, you can bet your bottom he will be spending the nights with us. At least until he is feeling better.


I must say, I miss my little monkey, but I am so happy for him.

btw.... check out Ryden in this little picture montage for "cute baby of the cloth"- he is about 1 1/2 minutes in!! =)

Love,

The Sleepingtons