Not Normal But Awesome

A couple of months ago, when Ander was 13 months old, I posted about how he wouldn't sleep. He would stay up until 11 p.m., and wake at 3 a.m. and cry until and unless we brought him to our bed. We had tried CIO (in a very mild form, where we sat on the floor by his crib and soothed him every few minutes) when he was about 10 months old, and it worked, but he got sick after that, and during his coughing fits we would bring him to our bed in desparation, and we had spoiled him.

So Alan and I tried something different. About 6 weeks ago, we started a nightly routine. Bath, Book, and soft lighting while watching the "Good Night Show" (on PBS Sprout) with Daddy. At 9 p.m., we say night night and prayer and have kisses, and tuck Ander in with Tigger. Then we decided that we would just let him cry, unless we thought he sounded hurt, in which case we would check on him, but not take him out of the crib and not talk to him - just tuck him back in. We also would not get up with him until after sunrise in the morning.

I thought it would be horrible, but with none of us sleeping, we had to do something.

Night one he cried about 10 minutes at 9 p.m. and a bit (less than 10 minutes each) at 3 and 5 a.m.

Night two he cried less.

By night three, he would just go to sleep and get up after sunrise.

But tonight, all our hard work really paid off. Because tonight, my dear child walked up to me, took my hand, looked at his daddy - at 3 minutes to 9 p.m. when the "Good Night Show" started to say "good night," and said, "nigh nigh." We walked with him to his room, where HE gave us kisses and HE laid down by himself and HE grabbed Tigger and HE smiled as we said "night night" and prayer. HE DID IT ON HIS OWN. And then we turned out the lights and walked out the room, and he went to sleep.

And then Alan gave me a high five and we grinned like crazy people, and Alan said, "that's just not normal."

Etcetera.