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Posted by cassie on Tuesday, 28 August, 2007 @ 8:04 pm

I’m happy to report that Anthony has been officially sleeping in his crib for one whole week! Amazingly it didn’t take as much effort to get him in there as I thought it was going to and makes me wish I did it even sooner. Don’t get me wrong I loved having the little bugger sleep with his (co-sleeping rocks when breast feeding) but he was starting to hog way more than his fair share of the bed and 2 parents sleeping on the edge to get the tiny tot happy wasn’t working anymore. For awhile Nick even slept on the twin size bed in Anthony’s room (his snoring had a lot to do with that too) and I finally put my foot down. I just couldn’t see why his parents should have to sleep apart when he has a perfectly good crib to sleep in.

For about a week prior I was putting Ant in his crib but would feel bad listening to him cry for 3 hours and watching him topple over (he refused to lay down) and would bring him to bed with me when I went to bed. But after listening to my gf, Jody, and my pediatrician I finally bucked up and made it happen. Thanks Jod for the book you lent me! I can’t recall the name off the top of my head but I’ll post it tomorrow.

Is anyone wondering how I did it? Keep in mind I have an extremely stubborn child. In fact up until several days ago he would stand up and either lean on the crib and fall asleep or finally sit down when his legs tuckered out. Bear in mind that normally took several hours, if it ever happened.

Here’s our routine:

1. eat dinner with Mommy and Daddy normally around 6p
2. take a bath every other night unless extremely filthy. When taking a bath Daddy carries me in and Mommy gets everything ready. Ant gets a bath and then into his room for a diaper and Pjs. Daddy then takes him for a few minutes while Mommy readies the room and cleans up the bathroom. If no bath, Daddy plays quietly (that took a lot of me stressing QUIET to get that to occur but it finally does. Kudos Babe!) while Mommy readies everything, gets some water, etc.
3. by readying the room I have an iPod in there that is on a continual loop that plays heart beats w/ waves as well as a color changing diffuser that spits out mist. I use that as his night light since it is soothing. Oh and I also shut the blinds to keep out light. Don’t forget to pick up any toys you could trip over on the way to the crib. lol
4. then I turn on my ever present Food Network and sit on the couch and nurse him to sleep w/his blankie. I then wait about 10 min and head into his room and put him down
5. as soon as he hits the mattress he wakes up and then proceeds to start crying and stands up. I wrap his blankie around his shoulders and put his blanket on my back to warm it up and make it smell like mommy, and stand and rub his back for several minutes. Once he settles down a bit I sit him down and put the blanket over his feet
6. Several kisses later I’m out the door and he fusses for a bit and falls asleep.
7. YEAH!!!!

The past two nights Ant hasn’t wanted to nurse to sleep (and since I’m trying to wean anyway…) I’ve tried nursing for several minutes and then just tell him “ok it’s time to go to bed” and off we go. Everything else has remained the same and in fact he is normally asleep my the time I get across the house to grab the monitor from my room. Tonight he even fussed him blanket into the perfect position and laid down on top of it and went to sleep. WOW-WEE! My little one has figured out how to lay down in the crib instead of sleeping sitting up.

If anyone needs suggestions/moral support/etc on how I did it or other ideas on how to get their darlings to sleep feel free to comment and I’ll help as best as I can!