Transitions, transitions...

It's 10:30 pm, and I just put our son to bed. His OWN bed. In his OWN room. That's right. On Tuesday night, my husband decided it was time for V to start sleeping on his own. It's been a long time coming. We've been co-sleeping since V was born, mostly out of necessity. B really needed his sleep during residency, and the easiest way to get it was to allow V to sleep in our bed with us, instead of putting him in his crib and letting him cry it out. It's not that we didn't try transitioning him to his crib. It's just that our son is one of the most determined babies I've ever met. There were a couple of times during B's residency when I tried to get V to sleep in his crib while B was on-call at the hospital. The one time V finally did fall asleep, he had cried for about 2 hours straight, and even though I went and checked on him every few minutes or so, there was no way to console him except to take him out of the crib. Once he was asleep, I decided to go to bed myself. That meant I had to walk by his crib over squeaky floorboards. He didn't stay asleep for very long, and I gave up and let him go to bed with me. I didn't try transitioning him after that, even though V kept getting bigger, and our queen-sized mattress seemed to be getting smaller with the three of us piling in together every night. Personally, I didn't mind co-sleeping, especially when I was nursing V. It made it very easy for me to sit up and breast feed him while we were in bed, and then, put him right back down next to me and go back to sleep. However, after he was weaned around 14 months, co-sleeping started to seem less desirable, mostly because V is a very light and restless sleeper, and he kicks, too! Honestly, I don't think I've slept through the night since before I got pregnant. That's almost three years of waking up at least once every single night for some reason or another. My husband and I have been ready for a long time to have our bed and our room back to ourselves, but we just couldn't find a way to do it without a lot of tears on both sides. Then, we moved to our new house. V still co-slept with us for a while, until our good friends loaned us their toddler bed. To make the transition easy on our son, we put the little bed next to my side of our queen bed. I started putting V in the toddler bed during his naps, and when that seemed to work almost immediately, we decided to try putting him in it at bed time. It wasn't a complete success. There were still nights when he would wake up wondering where he was and crying for us. He got to the point in the early mornings sometimes when he would just wake up and climb into bed with me. Then, B started practicing medicine at the beginning of August. We knew that he would be on-call at least once a week for his office, and though sometimes he would spend most of his call in the hospital, we also knew that there would be times when he would be home and get calls in the middle of the night, which would not only wake him up, but V and I as well. This past Tuesday happened to be one of those nights. B had planned on moving V's toddler bed into his room last weekend, but we were really too sick and lacked the energy to do anything about it. On Tuesday, when B got home, he decided that would be a good time for transitioning V. He knew he might not get very many calls, but he couldn't be absolutely sure he wouldn't get any at all. So down the hall the toddler bed went. V actually seemed a little excited about it because he already loves playing in his own room. It was like another toy for him! After dinner, he went into his room and climbed under his comforter and laid there while I read him a book. He was only playing, but it seemed like a good omen to me. When he finally fell asleep that evening, I went ahead and put him to bed in his room for the first time. B and I went to bed around 11:00. Then, about ten minutes later, B got a call from a patient who was in labor. Since it was already so late, he decided he would just sleep at the hospital after the delivery instead of coming back home and possibly getting called to work again. I fell asleep soon after he left. Then, around 2:30 am, I heard V crying. I went into his room and noticed his eyes were closed, but his pacifier had fallen out. Once paci was back in his mouth, he seemed to be totally asleep. I didn't hear anything from his room again until about 5:30 am. At that point, he was crying and sitting up in his bed, so I brought him to bed with me for the next couple of hours. I felt on the whole that his first night in his room went fairly well, and I hoped that it would only continue to get better for all of us. Unfortunately, that didn't happen last night. He was only in bed a couple of hours before I heard him crying. When I went to check on him, I found him on the floor in the hallway outside of his room. Rocking him and holding him just didn't work, and he ended up in bed with us for the rest of the night. None of us got any good sleep. V tossed and turned and kicked, and when B's alarm went off this morning, V woke up and just wouldn't go back to sleep, which was what I wanted to do! The rest of the day, we were both kind of tired, but V managed to have a good nap in his own bed this afternoon. I'm hoping tonight he decides his room is an okay place to sleep, and B and I can finally have our bed to ourselves! It may not happen, but hey, it never hurts to hope. And, now, to bed. If V's still in his room asleep tomorrow morning, I'll take a picture for proof and post it in celebration of another successful transition in his young life.
Best to you all, and good night!
Amanda