Bedtime

Zander has never slept in a crib. I just realized that. When he was a tiny newborn, he slept in a bassinet right by our bed. But after that we had his crib set up side by side with our bed, with one side of rails gone. So basically his crib was just a continuation of our bed. And he often ended up making his way onto our bed and sleeping between Curtis and me. One morning Curtis woke to find Zander hogging my side of the bed and I was curled up in a ball in Zander's crib part. Don't know how that happened.

Then he slept on just a mattress on the floor in his own room. He liked having his own "bed" and sleeping in his own room, so that transition was pretty smooth. Now he is 16 months old and has an actual toddler bed and loves it.

I never thought I would do it this way. I received lots of advice over the years from professors at school, friends, and family that you had to let your baby learn to sleep by "crying it out." This was always my plan. I still don't think it's a bad plan, and will probably do this with my next child(ren), because I won't have as much time to devote to bedtime when I have more than one child. But I don't regret the way we've done bedtime with Zander.

As it is, if he wakes up during the night, he comes into our room and finds us. There's something so sweet about waking up to a tiny hand grabbing yours and a tiny voice saying, "Mama." There's something hilarious about waking up to the noise of a toy vacuum and getting out of bed to find half-asleep little Goose pushing around his vacuum and then he starts crying when he realizes he's tired and not in bed anymore.

But the best part is the snuggles when he goes to sleep. We go to his room and say prayers, read a book or two, and then he drinks his almond milk while I sing "Baby Mine." I usually stay with him until he falls asleep. Sometimes this takes 5 minutes. Sometimes it takes a half hour. While I sometimes wish I didn't have to put in that time every nap and bedtime, I'm so grateful for those moments! That's where Zander learned to eskimo kiss, where he sometimes wraps his arms around my neck and pulls me so close we're cheek to cheek and he falls asleep like that. It's where we get a chance, everyday, for just the two of us to look at each other. (If you know Zander, he is a busy boy. He rarely holds still long enough for this to really happen otherwise.) We get to snuggle while I tell him how wonderful I think he is and how much I love him. Today's happy: Bedtime with Zander.



And this one's just funny. Goofy kid.