Sleep like a baby

It's almost midnight and as I lay here wide awake, thanks in part to the late night Diet Coke I shouldn't have had and in part to my high blood sugar I am waiting to come down, I can hear the girls peacefully snoring beside me. Yep, that's right, beside me. Well, to be exact, Sophia is in her toddler bed to my left & Madison in between Bob and I in bed.

While I want to make sure I keep this blog relevant to birth and babies and all things that come along with adjusting to life with a newborn, I will also share some of my own experiences along the way (as well as some posts that have no purpose but to show off my own miracles!). Sleep seems to be a big topic of concern among expecting/new parents. I have been asked by several new moms what advice I have for them- methods, books, ways to help their newborn sleep through the night in their own crib/room...

By the end of this post you will see that while I may give decent advice in other areas, this is one topic I should NEVER be allowed to talk about again.

If you had asked me 3 years ago, before Sophia was born, I would have confidently said I was sure she would be sleeping in her crib in her room by 2 months. Flash forward to our first night in the hospital together as a family. Bob told me it was ok to put her down, to let her sleep in her little bed next to me. But I couldn't do it. I was too in love to stop staring, stop kissing her on the head. I barely slept a wink that night as I carefully cradled her in my arms. And so it began.

The first few months we slept wherever, whenever we could. On the couch, in the rocking chair or recliner. It didn't matter. I wasn't about to have her too far from me. I was too lazy to get up in the middle of the night to feed her. Rolling over to scoop her up was much easier.



For those of you with alarm bells going off in your head, let me assure you we were very safe about our co-sleeping practices. Here is a great article about co-sleeping safety if you are interested in learning more. This picture was just a short nap but so cute I had to throw it in...



We tried at different times to transition her into her own room. At 4 months I read "The No-Cry Sleep Solution": Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night". I started a routine and followed it strictly for a few weeks. I was working full time in Huntington Beach at the time. My mom took care of Sophia during the day and I typically arrived at her house to pick her up somewhere between 6:00 pm (on a really good day) and 7:15 pm. I rushed her and the boys home, fed everyone dinner and threw my pj's on just in time to start our bedtime routine by 8:00 pm. This seemed to work for awhile but then life happened. An hour and a half commute home turned into a two hour commute, the boys needed me to run them by the store for a last minute project for school, dinner got on late... I had every excuse in the book to justify why I ended up falling asleep with her in my arms or next to me in bed.

Ok, if Bob is reading this he will totally call me out on this so I might as well fess up and say I DIDN'T TRY THAT HARD. I liked having her in bed with us. It was comforting to me knowing she was safe & sound right next to me. After a long day away from her the last thing I wanted to do was come home and put her in her bed in her room. I wanted to snuggle with her and enjoy every minute I could get. Oh and just between us, Bob liked it just as much as I did. ;)

So that's how we started down this path of co-sleeping. I stopped worrying that I was "spoiling" her or setting her up for sleep problems for the rest of her life. We decided to let it go for now and when she was a little older we would try again.

5 months later we found out I was pregnant with Madison. Sophia was 9 months old.

We panicked. Where would a baby sleep in just 9 short months?? How will we get the baby to sleep if Sophia is crying for hours trying to fall asleep? What if they go to bed at different times?

So we committed, once again, to moving Sophia into her room. Against my gut feeling, I shamefully admit that we tried to let her cry it out. Now, don't get me wrong, CIO works well for some families. Just not ours. Not our 9 month old that had become so fond of her nighttime routine with mommy that ended in a cozy bed together. Not with a mommy that just didn't have it in her to listen to her baby cry that way. I'm not talking about just a few little cries. I am talking about the kind of sobbing that would literally make her sick to her stomach and would last for over an hour even after she stopped crying. I just couldn't do it. Like I said, I get that it works well with some babies and I do NOT judge anyone that uses CIO. It just didn't work for us. Part of it was that I was just too tired myself at the end of the night to fully commit to it. I just wanted to go to bed. So if me getting a decent's night sleep meant taking her with me...well I resigned myself to that and figured she would eventually WANT to go to bed in her own big girl room- maybe once Madison was here and I could reason with her. We even bought her a new bed to go in their room- a BIG GIRL bed! Yeah, exciting...right?

Yeah. Right...

Look at this barely used crib all set up for Madison...



And Sophia's "big girl bed" ...



Well...Madison would be in a co-sleeper for awhile so Sophia could still be in bed with us. That worked, too. For awhile. The girls got bigger and bigger yet the bed seemed to get smaller and smaller.

AHA! The bed is too small! THAT's the problem! So we got a bigger bed. Upsized our queen to a KING.

Finally, Sophia was old enough to appreciate her own space and we started using her bed for naps here and there. We tried AGAIN to get her to sleep in it. And repeat the above scenario...starting to get the picture?

So here we are. Madison will be 2 in just a few short weeks and Sophia turned 3 in September. And while it does get a little crowded from time to time, and some mornings when we wake up there may be a foot in someone's mouth or they have switched places entirely it works for us. And while I listen to their peaceful snores I remind myself that I will NEVER get these nights back. I will cherish falling asleep next to them for as long as I can. I won't stress about the decisions I have made that don't seem to be hurting my girls in any way. I will continue to do what feels right for us not what a book tells me to do.

But I will also dream about the day I have two peaceful, sleeping toddlers in their own room together.