Moving Out

We have so many things going on right now that it seems impossible to get them all into writing.
Henry is closing in on 10 months and his ninth month has been the most eventful so far. Since he turned 9 months, he has learned to crawl very well, no more stomach scooting at all. He was already pulling up on everything, but he now holds onto objects with one hand only and sometimes lets go entirely. He has started to say mama, dada, and bye bye. He claps, which is probably his favorite development. He is trying all sorts of new foods, pretty much tasting everything we eat. He has had no meat and very limited dairy, those we’ll continue to avoid for now (meat for a long time if I have any say!). His current favorite seems to be watermelon .
Perhaps the milestone that affects our daily lives most is that Henry is now sleeping through the night- alone! We have discussed for months the co-sleeping and how it would work if I had to be away from Henry overnight, or if both of us were to be away from him overnight. He is used to being between us in bed and nursing back to sleep if he wakes up. This is a fine temporary arrangement, but I sometimes have overnight doula shifts and would also like to take on some private doula clients. This means I am not in bed at times and Rob is not comfortable sleeping alone with Henry as he is afraid he may roll over on him- unlikely given our boy’s nearly 20 lb wiggly body. Really, the issue isn’t as much the rolling over as it is that Rob just does not sleep well when I’m not there and Henry is. If I’m gone overnight, one parent at least should be rested!
We discussed putting H in his crib for at least part of the night, and 2 weeks ago while Rob was out of town for a conference I gave it a shot. I got Henry into his pajamas and overnight diaper, nursed him into a sleepy state and laid him in his crib. He cried for a few minutes. I was prepared to let him fuss for just about 15 minutes, that sounds like a long time but I knew that if he really cried hard that I’d probably cave. After about 10 minutes of some half-assed fussing, he fell asleep. And he stayed asleep. After a bit, I had to go check on his breathing. And I did that the next hour and the next and finally when I went to bed I took him with me, sleeping the entire time.
The next night I laid him in the crib and the fussing stopped as soon as I shut the door. Silence. This time I restrained myself and only checked on him twice, and still took him to bed with me a few hours later.
I was so amazed by this development that when Rob came home, I could not wait to show him. That night, we decided to see how long Henry would sleep alone in the crib. He lasted from about 8 pm until 4 am and awakened so I got him and brought him back to us.
Since that night, he has lengthened his sleep until 5 or 6 am. I am amazed. He sleeps so well in his crib! We are sleeping more soundly also, though I miss that little guy next to me. I am not sure what changed, but I think he was just ready for more space and independence. This milestone came just in time for a very hectic weekend that I’ll talk about in my next post.