He's Ready

So Howard has been increasingly harder and harder to put to bed.  He's never been as easy as Caroline (who is a DREAM at going to bed and sleeping through the night... no pun intended) but he's never been super hard to get to sleep... until recently.

The past few nights... maybe four nights he has not wanted to sleep and so I nurse him or I rock him and he'll fall asleep... but AS SOON AS I move him, he wakes up and screams.  And he continues to scream indefinitely through multiple attempts at rocking, shushing, passies. There have been nights when this goes on for hours.

Well, tonight... I hope I'm not declaring victory prematurely... but I think Howard was sending the message he is too tall for the bassinet.  We have a double bassinet -- so think of a standard pack-n-play, and then its split down the middle with two beds across the width of the bassinet.  Whenever I tried to move Howard from my arms or our bed to his half of the bassinet that's when he would scream.

Well last night we were up in Vail for a little family getaway to the mountain games and so I had to accept that Howard and Caroline need two separate cribs to sleep... and Howard went down SO MUCH better.

Our tall boy was able to stretch out and he didn't fall fast asleep -- we had to adjust his passie a few times... but we had no on-going game of screaming and soothing either.  The difference was astounding.  By 9:30pm everyone -- including Hubby -- was asleep.  What a drastic difference from a few nights before where I was still trying to move him off our bed at 1:00am.

As I'm sure as will be the case with innumerable situations with my son... I am not ready for him to hit this milestone and move to his own crib in the nursery... but he is sending the message that he is ready.  And, holding him back to my timetable is hurting both of us -- its hurting his lungs, my ears, probably his legs having to crunch into a space he's outgrown, and my both of our required sleep.  If he were not a twin and it was a standard one-child bassinet, it's possible we wouldn't have to move him to the nursery for him to get more space... but circumstances being what they are -- he's outgrown the twin bassinet and off to the nursery he will go.

My baby boy is ready for his own crib... and his sweet twin sister sleeps so well anywhere, so I suppose we will move her to the nursery as well.

*Mama wipes away a proud, sentimental, joyful, and sad tear*