Brody's Growing Up

"Child rearing myth #1: Labor ends when the baby is born."
Anonymous

I am not a believer in a child must be put in his or her crib right away. In fact, I guess you could say I believe in a "family bed" or that mentality a bit more. Every single one of my boys has slept in bed next to me for at least their first year. It never started out like this because of a conscious decision. Ty never liked his crib. He could easily go to sleep by himself, but not in a crib, he would only sleep in a bed. I have stated many times over, he is the best sleeper. He falls asleep right as his head hits the pillow, and despite waking early, will entertain himself until it is more of a decent time, and everyone else wakes up. When Nate was born we were so consumed with constantly checking on his breathing and worried about him because of how sick he was, that he again ended up in our bed. I should say they all stayed in a bassinet next to our bed until they were too big for the bassinet, then they just moved to our bed. It wasn't until Nate was two that he began sleeping very easily in his bed. He went to sleep without any problems and on his own. Well with Keira's arrival rapidly approaching, we knew Brody had to move into the boys' room and start consistently sleeping in his crib. Brody loves to go to sleep. If you ask him if he wants to go "night-night" he will get the biggest smile on his face, run to find a pacifier and say night night to everyone and wait at the bottom of the stairs for me. He generally goes to bed very quickly, within 10-15 minutes, but I have always stayed with him, as I did with Ty and Nate. Brody sleeps through the night for the most part, occasionally waking up because of gas, but he is and always has been very easy. We decided there was no time like the present and tried it our last night though. In his crib, in the boys' room, he went to bed with the boys last night. We let him stay up a full two hours later than usual. His normal bed time is 6/630, and he went to bed at 830 last night. Despite some crying, he did great! Now we did have to move Nate out of his room and he slept in a sleeping bag on the floor of our room, much to Nate's dismay, but just as Brody would quiet down and start to go to sleep, Nate would sing "SpongeBob Squarepants" at the top of his lungs and wake Brody up again. We gave Nate many warnings, but it takes Nate a lot longer to get himself to wind down and fall asleep. He is my night owl. Even with the distraction of Nate, it only took 45 minutes before Brody was out cold, hugging a Homer Simpson stuffed-doll thing. (Nathan also had to remove quite a few stuffed animals because he said Brody was trying to pile them to climb out of the crib and escape. It was Nate's way of trying to make Brody stop crying. Every time Brody would cry, Nate threw another stuffed animal in his crib.) Nathan and I were both positive he wasn't going to fall asleep on his own in his crib, so were were very excited. We were both positive Brody would wake up and want to come in bed with us, which we were both okay with for a while, until he got used to his crib and the boys' room, but he shocked us yet again, and didn't make a peep until 7am, when it was a bit more Ty waking him up, than him waking on his own. Now I didn't get a peaceful sleep because I was so paranoid about Brody sleeping and listening for him that I tossed and turned and woke myself up for every little noise I heard. I have been telling him all morning how proud of him I am, and I can only hope that he does as well tonight as he did last night. I know this will make things so much easier on Nathan, and make me feel so much better, when I have to be in the hospital when I have Keira. Wish us luck!!!