Rock-a-Bye Baby

We've had lots of Christmas preparation and activities going on around here this weekend. But I'll have to tell you about that another time because we're also hitting a big milestone tonight.  A sad milestone. Tonight will (probably) be the last night I rock my baby to sleep. <insert giant sad face with tear here>  We've been talking about it, dabbling at it and putting it off for months now and it's finally time to pull the trigger.  The plan is to start letting Brennan "cry it out" tomorrow night.  Oh wait!  That means I still get nap time tomorrow to rock him!  I may just rock him the full two hours to suck every last minute out of it.  Who cares if there's laundry to do.

I thought we were going to start last week after we got back from our Thanksgiving trip, but, well, it didn't quite happen.  He actually slept through the night two nights in a row. But now he's back to his same old routine waking up at night.  So, since he has nine month check up tomorrow (oh my God, my baby is nine months old!) I figured I could put it off until then, you know, so I can get the doctor's advice and all.

And now it's out here, on the interwebs, for all to see.  I'm committed.  No turning back.  Unless, of course, the doctor advises me to keep rocking him.  I wouldn't want to ignore a professional's advice.

I keep thinking I'm not going to be strong enough to do this.  Unfortunately for Matt, I'll probably be sending him in to calm the crying a lot because when those hands reach out to me and grab at me, I may just give in and pick him up and rock him. Somehow I managed with Kaelyn.  But it only took her three nights.  And this is my baby boy.  And since we're not planning on having any more kids it makes me sad to think I won't get to rock any more babies.  Oh, I'm sure I'll still get to rock him once in a while, like if he's sick.  But you know, it's not quite the same, knowing that when I go to put him to sleep every night I'm losing minutes of valuable cuddle time.

I should be looking forward to this, I know.  If this is successful it means no more "wrestling" and fighting him to go to sleep.  No more going back in when we're in the middle of watching a movie and he wakes up.  And hopefully no more 2 a.m. wake up calls.  These are all good things that will probably improve the quality of my own sleep which will in turn improve my moods and ability to be a good mom during the day.  But it still makes me sad.  And first we have to get through, possibly two weeks, of very poor sleep and listening to my baby cry.  Wish us luck!

Looking so handsome and very grown up at Thanksgiving

In other big Brennan news, he's getting quite good at throwing a ball, he can now do several of the motions to "Wheels on the Bus," his favorite song, and he's been saying what sounds a lot like "Dada" lately.  Next thing we know he'll be walking. (Yikes!)  Is it possible to simultaneously love and hate watching him grow up?

Being goofy! Hopefully this means he'll have a good sense of humor like his daddy.

****UPDATE**** 12/6/11
Based on what the doctor said yesterday and B's personality we decided not to use the Ferber Method of crying it out that we more or less used with Kaelyn.  Instead, we will put him in bed awake but sleepy and stay in the room patting his back and comforting him (without picking him up) until he (eventually) falls to sleep.  I would say last night went pretty well.  Although I may have messed up a little.  After night-nights and prayers in Kaelyn's room I decided to rock him for two songs to settle him down.  I knew he was already pretty sleepy.  He fought me and cried until close to the end of the second song and then started to settle in.  I put him down as quickly as I could but it was so dark in his room I couldn't really tell if he was still awake or had fallen asleep that quickly.  When I laid him down he let out one tiny cry and then was quiet.  Success!  I guess.  Then he woke up right as we were going to bed.  Matt went in and was able to get him back to sleep in about 10 minutes without picking him up.  Then he woke about 2 o'clock, which is when I would usually feed him.  The doctor did say to keep doing the feeding if I felt like he was actually hungry.  But to me, it's gotta be all or nothing.  Or, at least I had to try to do it without picking up, rocking and feeding.  I knew he would fall asleep while eating so I felt like we'd be erasing any good we'd done if I immediately gave in to feeding him.  He cried pretty hard for about the first 5 minutes and then started to settle down.  Then, he would lay down for a bit, sit up and then stand up occasionally with a little bit of crying.  But he didn't seem to be starving so I stuck with it.  For close to 2 hours I stuck with it.  In the last 20 minutes he started crying pretty hard again and would immediately stand up when I would try to lay him down.  Then, he must have just been exhausted and fell asleep.  I'm pretty proud of myself for not giving in.

Now I'm exhausted.  After being up with him for 2 hours it took me at least another hour to fall back to sleep.  And I woke up to crying about an hour later.  But, he actually went back to sleep on his own by the time I got to his room.  It was 6 o'clock, his normal eating time.  But I wasn't about to wake him back up.  So I went back to bed for another half hour and he kept sleeping.  He woke up a little around 7 but Matt got him back to sleep.  And then he slept until I had to wake him up at about 8 to get ready to take K to school.  And so far today naps have gone pretty well.  Same routine with a quick rock and lullaby and then put him in his crib still awake and pat until he falls asleep.  I think it was less than 10 minutes both times til he was asleep.  I think he's still pretty exhausted from last night.