The Club

Thank you ALL for your input on my call for advice regarding my little one's nursing to sleep and lack of day time sleeping "issues."  You all had wonderful words of wisdom, suggestions and personal experience to share.  I truly love hearing your input because as we all know, every baby is different and so is every mother.  I find your feedback incredibly valuable.  I think I kinda like the "Mom" blog side of things too and I'm going to give some more thought about the direction this blog is going to be heading.  I'm very excited about it. :-) 

I had been trying nearly all of the things you had suggested and now that my little peanut has reached his 6 week mark, it is now obvious to me that my little man is now reaching an age where he is better "ready" to venture a little farther from Mama's cocoon little by little.  He is now ready to not "need" to nurse to sleep every time and will now nap if I bounce him on the exercise ball & sometimes prefers it. 

He is sleeping better in the day time and that truly was the root of the entire problem.  As soon as he started to get more sleep during the day, it was like he woke up from his newborn haze and presented his beautiful bright and smiley face that has given me ALL the reward I needed and truly made the lack of sleep seem insignificant.  Without trying to get too cheesy and cliche on you - yes there has been some sobbing moments for me at 4a.m. (not because he was fussing, just because I was so tired and only getting 1 hr stretches of sleep together with not getting any naps during the day truly was taking its toll) - as soon as he started greeting me with a big huge smiling face every single morning when he wakes up rested and ready for the day, it all changed. 

I never in a million years could have imagined how much impact that little smiling face can have on your life.  I always "heard" it from moms and while I did anxiously anticipate that day to come (even though I did already get some smiles mixed in the cranky over tired days), there is something so different about it now.  I spent so many years getting my education and working in a professional job that fulfilled me in completely different ways that I didn't really know what I was missing out on until now. 

I'm now a part of the "club" and the reason I know this is that little Peanut and I made our first trip to the grocery store on Friday and I wore him in my Baby Bjorn carrier where he promptly fell asleep for the entire trip around the store (yay!).  At first it was the way the elderly women smiled at him and me kind of "knowingly" saying that they don't get the chance to see too many little ones any more.  It was just the look on their faces and the way they smiled.  Then as I was loading the groceries into the trunk of the car (with Peanut still strapped to my chest), a nice woman came over to me and said, "Can I help you with your groceries? I remember what it was like with a little one."  At first I almost resisted her assistance with a "No, thanks" out of habit, but then I stopped myself and let her help me.  Waiting for her a few cars up was her young teenaged son.  There was something about her that struck me almost like I had encountered a future version of myself.  She told me that she had just come back from a run and it was like that little piece of information (which I assume she was telling me because she was dressed in workout clothes) was enough to help me see that one day I will be there again too.  It was like I was standing back and watching it all happen and noticing her son waiting for her.

It feels really good to be a member of this club :-)