He's always either been in the pack and play next to our bed (for the first month or two of his life) and in our bed since.
I've looked at ways and different methods to get him in his own bed for the past few weeks and finally came across "Good Night, Sleep Tight" by Kim West. In short- you sit by the crib at night, gently shh-ing, patting the mattress, but not picking up baby and putting them to sleep how you usually do. The purpose of the whole thing is for them to be able to soothe themselves back to sleep at the start of the night, and whenever they wake up in the middle of the night.
Ivan has been waking up a few times at night and wanting to nurse back to sleep, as well as nursing to sleep at the start of the night, which is taking a major toll on me. He's also started crawling around a little bit at night, trying to get super comfortable, and usually ends up headbutting either Luke or myself.
Tonight after his bath and one final nursing session around 845, he started looking sleepy and trying to fall asleep with me feeding him. I laid him down at 907. He was up and down and sitting and standing and crying and screaming, doing everything he could to get me to pick him up. I picked him up 2 or 3 times, and laid him down 3 times. He finally fell asleep at 945 or so, and I sat in his room until 1002, when I was sure that he was asleep. I'm supposed to continue this every time he wakes up tonight..which will make for a long night. I'm really hoping and praying that he stays asleep for awhile because I'm EXHAUSTED.
Whew...Lets hope that this isn't too terribly awful. The first "part" of the shuffle lasts 2-3 nights when I'm right next to his bed, then 2-3 more nights when I'm halfway across the room, and so on and so forth, until he's able to put himself to sleep at night without me.
I'm really going to miss his snuggles at night, but it's time to turn our once marital bed- turned family bed- back into a marital bed.
Be strong sweetie. It's harder on you than him. I promise.
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