Self Soothing

Last weekend I went to a Hanscom Spouses Club meet and greet...yes I went. If you know me you know that is so not my thing. But I actually had a good time and meet some nice people! It is always nice to meet new people...and drink wine :) I met up with a friend first at her house where she was waiting on her sitter to arrive. I stopped and listened to her explain to the sitter everything about her son and heard her say "just put him down to sleep, don't rock him he will just put himself to sleep." Her son is 8 months old. This made me realize something, I have always rocked Adrianna to sleep before putting her in her crib. Every nap and every bedtime was the same. I would bring her upstairs, read her a story then rock her to sleep and slowly put her down then sneak out of her room. Lately she has been fighting me when I try to rock her and I just thought "wow she is really fighting her sleep today." It never even crossed my mind that MAYBE just MAYBE it may be time to start letting her self sooth to sleep. I should have done this months ago but for some reason I have been having a hard time letting go of the fact that Adrianna is not a baby anymore. 

This same friend was mentioning to me that she sometimes lets her baby "cry it out." I have never even thought of doing that with Adrianna simply because I just always had a fear of her crying so hard she throws up...which she has done....but back when she had reflux as an infant! She is not a baby anymore. She is not so delicate anymore. I also noticed this same friend's video monitor and noticed that she couldn't even SEE her son sleeping in it. She mentioned that since lowering the crib she hasn't been able to actually see him but she mostly uses it just to see when he actually gets up and to hear his cry. I, on the other hand, still wake up once a night to stare at the monitor to make sure she's breathing or I walk into her room to check. I guess it's because of having to be so careful when she was first born. She was a 5 week preemie born at 4lbs 4oz so she was tiny! She never had issues breathing but the NICU nurse always made sure to drill it into my head that I needed to check on her and make sure she was always on her back because she could stop breathing especially because she was so little. I guess I forgot to stop STOP checking, Ha! Well I always kind of knew I should really stop being so scared of something bad happening...especially since my husband had been pointing out my obsession with the video monitor lately and been telling me to turn it off at night and I refused. 

Listening to my friend talk about her 8 month old and how laid back she was with him made me stop and think. What was I planning, rocking Adrianna to sleep until she was 2 or 3 years old?! So a few days ago, Monday actually, I decided to read her a bedtime story, kiss her goodnight and put her down to let her cry it out. She cried for about a half hour....I know because I looked at the time, it really felt like 2 hours. She then laid herself down and fell fast asleep. She didn't even wake up in the middle of the night like she sometimes did! Tuesday I tried it again and she fell asleep in, I'm not kidding, 3 minutes! A little crying then she laid down and hugged her teddy and fell asleep. I guess I have been holding her back from being a big girl and I wasn't listening to her demand to let her be and do things on her own. So I have put away all bottles, let her feed herself, sometimes with a spoon if it's not too messy, and I must say I feel better about her being more independent! This crying it out thing was much easier than I thought it would be, I'm sure it wont be this easy with my future children....no way am I going to be blessed with such easy children! Well you never know, guess I'll just have to wait and see ;)