End of an Era

Magically on Mother's Day  night, William slept through the night. 

Mike went in around 10 and rocked William back to sleep.  But he woke up about 30 minutes later.  We knew he was tired and not hungry, so we waited.  I was ready to go in, but he started to quite down.  Watching on the video monitor, I then saw William take his blanket, smoosh it into his face, and fall down on top of it.  He did this several times until he stayed laying down.  Over the course of the night, I watched him so it again, and then stay laying down with his blanket.  Around 1am, I was ready to go into him, but he stopped crying by the time I got to his door.  He made it all the way until 5am.  Then I went in an fed him, and he slept some more in my lap. 

He repeated his performance last night.  He slept until about 11, then woke about every two hours, but each time he was able to put himself back to sleep within ten minutes.  This morning, he slept until 630. 

Of course, its only been two nights.  Things might change back, but I don't think they will go back to where we were before now that we know he can go through the whole night without us.  When we travel, or he gets sick, or teethes we might have a rougher time, but it shouldn't be me nursing him 5 times in the night. 

It was very strange going to bed last night in my own bed room.  For 8 months, I haven't gone to bed.  I've known that I would be awoken and up anywhere between 3 to 5 times.  I woke up last night, but didn't need to get out of bed.  Its strange to think I could have some sort of routine again.  Its also strange to think of that I won't have to fill that time with anything anymore.  I used to think, Oh, I'll write that message in the middle of the night while I'm up with William, or, I'll play on Pinterest while I'm up with William.  Now if I want to do these things I'll have to fit it into the day time. 

William sleeping through the night also means that Mike and I could have the baby sitter come in the evening.  Natalie's sleep is back to normal now that her pain is better managed, and if William can go all night without us, there is no reason we can't go out.  We will still need to be here to put them to bed, so we can't go out til about 8, but we can still go out.  One of our pet peeves around here is that all the movies start around 7 or 9.  We miss the first one, and the second one seems so late to us now.  And 8 is awfully late for dinner.  But we'll figure something out.  

But what is making me feel a bit sad is that William won't sleep next to me in bed again.  These last few weeks we've done a lot of bed sharing.  In particular, he slept with me all night at my parents' house while we were visiting.  The first night, he was very restless.  But the second night, he slept very peacefully next to me the whole night, waking up to eat and falling right back to sleep with no fuss.  If that is going to be our last night sleeping together, it was a very nice way to end things.  I'll miss him laying there all peaceful and warm next to me.  It was fun when he would wake up all smiling in the morning and ready to play.  Now, I won't miss being crawled, and the crying, and the kicking, and  him butting his head on the wall, just the same as I know him learning to sleep without me is far more important than some more night time snuggles.