Sleeping Through the Night Means Sleeping in the Nursery

When I began the voyage of pregnancy motherhood, Nick & I talked it over and decided our child would sleep in our room with us, but never in the bed (that didn't last very long) until he/she could sleep through the night so Mommy wouldn't have to trek across the dark house to the nursery to answer feeding calls.

That time has come.  Sweet Cheeks solidly sleeps through the night, every night.  I have to say, I wasn't prepared for this day to come.  Sweet Cheeks's been sleeping through the night for a couple of weeks now and once she first started we decided to do some sleep training (also known as "cry it out").  I got to use that as an excuse to not move her into her nursery.  Tonight is the fourth night and she's taken to putting herself to sleep much better than I had anticipated.  She cries less than 10 minutes every night (naps are still a little sketchy, but we're working on it) and then she drifts off to sleep.  I think she'll always cry or fuss a bit, I like to think of it as her blowing off steam - a friend told me that if you get less than 10 minutes of crying, she considers it a win.  I like that philosophy.

So the time has come.  I gave her a bath tonight, read her Goodnight Moon, topped her off with a little more food, kissed her goodnight, told her I loved her, and laid her in her crib with secret hopes that she wouldn't be able to sleep in her crib.  Seven minutes later after fussing and crying, she's out like a light and Mommy is sitting here wistfully thinking about where the time has already gone (yes, I know it's only been 3 1/2 months).

I know she still needs me and will need me for a very long time to come, but it hurts that she doesn't need me quite as much as she did a month ago...although I'm very proud to have a 3 1/2 month baby who sleeps through the night and can put herself to sleep.  I know this is the first step in a lot of steps of her pulling away and becoming the independent person she's destined to be and it makes me sad (and proud and happy and so many other contradictory emotions I can't even explain).  I can't even blame the hormones anymore.

On a side note, all these smiley photos...still no laugh.  She's real close...I can tell.  Her mouth opens up to laugh, just no sound yet.  I'm hoping I'll get to hear the first one before I go to work, but I'm not sure if I'll get that delight (makes me jealous that it may be Nick who gets that sweet sound for the first time).

Tummy time isn't so hard ANYMORE! HA!!!

Say what!?!

Daddy's so silly!

It didn't fit in my mouth...