Good night, sleep tight

Disclaimer: this post is totes boring, but I need to record it or I won't remember it in a week, much less when I need to when it's time for our next (God-willing) baby. 

Before we were expecting I thought in my head that I wanted to raise a "flexible" baby.  I wanted to be able to go places and do things and bring the baby everywhere and not be tied to a schedule.  I thought that naps could happen in cars, or in my arms at a football game and we could have bed time when we got home from wherever we were.

While I was pregnant and on bed rest I had a lot of time to read all of the big sleep books out on the market.  After reading many of these I complete changed my tune and was all about SCHEDULE SCHEDULE SCHEDULE.  Nothing will work until baby is on a schedule! I thought Carter would come out and we would Babywise him from day 1 and WE would set HIS schedule.

And...then I had a baby.  A preemie who was small and precious and everything I ever prayed for and spent 24 hours a day in my arms.  For 5 weeks he did nothing but sleep while he was supposed to still be in my belly.  Once we got closer to when he was supposed to be born he started waking up and having a little activity time, but not much.  And now, at 3 months we are finally to a point where I feel like he's a little human who wakes, eats, plays and naps.

For the past 3 months he has basically been all over the place in terms of a schedule and sleeping, but he never went through the "reverse days and nights" phase, thankfully.  It took awhile, but slowly he has started extended his night sleep, with no extra effort on our parts.  The only thing that was hard was getting him to go to sleep.  We would rock, go on car rides, nurse...you name it, we tried it.  Everything they told you NOT to do to get baby to sleep we were doing.  But...I also read that young babies can't form habits and can't soothe themselves so not to stress too much about sleep routines in their early life. Especially with a preemie.

Recently I noticed that Carter was crying a lot after I put him down and would stop as soon as I picked him back up.  I realized the little stinker had trained ME and I was completely falling for it!! So on a whim last Sunday night I put him down and let him cry it out.  It took 46 minutes (and two beers on my part!) for him to finally go to sleep.  I tortured myself and watched him on the monitor the entire time and just cried and cried and cried.  But he went to sleep!!

The next night only took 19 minutes.  And then 8 minutes.  And now we are at ZERO MINUTES people!!  It literally went from fortheloveofGodpleasegotosleep and taking 2 hours before he finally went down, to a kiss on the forehead and a few minutes of him talking to himself and he's out.  Who knew?!?  Praise the Lord!

I put him down between 8-8:30 and he usually sleeps until 4 or 5am.  I quickly diaper change and nurse him and he goes right back down until 8:30 or 9am.  He is definitely not a morning person! I still let him sleep as long as he wants to in the morning (and usually sleep until he wakes me up!)

Our days still leave a lot to be desired, but I'm really proud of how far we have come at night.  And I'm not really hard-core on making him follow a schedule OR letting him be flexible.  I feel like it's a good mix of both and we are figuring out what works for US and not trying to mold him into something else.

Once he goes 100% through the night without nursing I will move him to his room, but for now he will stay by my side.  I honestly think that will be within the next few weeks so this momma will have to start preparing her heart for that move.  I'm not ready, but at least I still have some time before that happens.