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Friday, February 3, 2012

A Night in the Crib

So Luke has his own room (well, half of a room as the other half is my office), but he hasn't really ever used it. The crib is set up, there are decorations on the wall and the shelf, and there's my wonderful glider, but that half of the room gets very little use. Luke takes naps in his swing out in the front room and he sleeps at night in a bassinet beside our bed. It's been working out nicely for us (our bedroom and his room are at opposite ends of the house, so it's much easier to have him right there in the room for nightly feedings than to have to go up and down the hall several times a night).

But Luke is going to outgrow the bassinet soon. And so it seems that it is time to transition him to the crib. And it's not just transitioning him that is the issue; it's also transitioning me. I have to admit that I love having him right beside my bed at night because I can check on him whenever I want (without getting out of bed) to make sure he's still breathing. So moving him to a different room is actually harder on me than him, I think.

So last night was the night. I started by putting him to bed a little earlier than we have been. He's been going to bed around 8:30. Instead of having him take a short evening nap, with a short playtime after, and then bedtime, I just put him to bed when it seemed like he was ready for that evening nap (which turned out to be a little later than he had been taking it, so I think that worked out nicely) around 7:00. I rocked him in the glider, nursed him a little, and put him in the crib. Video monitor in hand, I went back out to the front room to watch some TV and knit and spend time with Jarrett. Luke seemed perfectly content sleeping in the crib. He had a moment around 9:30 (during Grey's Anatomy) where he started wiggling around a lot, but he wasn't crying and he got himself back to sleep.

I decided to sleep on the futon, which is in the room right next to Luke's room so that way if there were any issues, I wouldn't have to keep walking back and forth down the hall. Shortly after I got into bed (10:30), Luke woke up and was hungry so I nursed him. He went right back to sleep and I went back to the futon. Unfortunately, I didn't go right to sleep. And it wasn't the futon. It was my own mind. I keep turning on the video monitor to check on Luke and was straining my ears to hear if he was making any noise. I found myself wide awake. I think I finally got too tired and fell asleep a little over an hour later.

I don't know why I was so worried. Luke didn't seem bothered at all to be in his crib. He had several other wakeups where he wanted to nurse (I think it was 1:30, 3:00, 4:30), but that has been our normal for the past few weeks (he's eating less during the day because he's equating nursing with sleeping and he's been fighting his naps a little, so he's making up for eating at night), so it actually wasn't too bad. He was up and ready for the day a little after 6:00, which is a bit earlier than usual (between 6:30 and 7:00) but not too bad.

So for Luke the first night in the crib was quite a success. And once I actually let myself get to sleep, it was successful for me, too. I'll probably sleep on the futon for a few more nights just to be sure, but I don't want that to become a permanent situation so I'll have to make myself move back to the bed, let's say starting Monday evening. That gives us three more nights to make sure everything is working out okay with the crib.

In other news, the weather was gorgeous again yesterday, so we met up with some other moms and took a nice walk at a part (we also went for a walk the day before). And for the first time, I tried out the stroller without the infant seat so that Luke could actually look around while we were walking. The shoulder straps were a little loose, even on the tightest setting, but otherwise Luke seemed to be perfectly fine sitting that way. (One of the other moms has the same stroller and she said the straps were loose on her daughter for a while, so it seems that it's just the way the stroller is built.) He did start to get a little fussy right at the end of the walk and cried quite a bit in the car on the way home, but he had a very good reason for that as I discovered when we got home: his diaper was quite dirty! Oops on me for not checking it!

One other first yesterday: it was the first time that Luke has actually grabbed my glasses off my face and waved them around. I've tried to keep his hands away from my glasses but I wasn't being careful yesterday morning and sure enough, he grabbed for them. I guess I'll just have to keep a more careful watch, but I'm sure it will happen again.

I think today will be a stay home day since we've been going out a lot this week. If the weather is still beautiful this afternoon, I might go on a short walk around the block, but I think relaxing at home sounds really nice today. And maybe I'll get a little time in for sewing during his afternoon nap, something that I haven't done at all yet this week. We'll see what today brings.

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