A Room of One's Own

There's been a big development in the Langford household. Milo has begun sleeping in his own room.

Before he was born, I assumed Milo would sleep in his crib, in his own room, from the very beginning. I scoffed at the people who said it wouldn't happen, that we would definitely want him close by for the first few days or weeks (or months, even). I wasn't a fan of co-sleeping, and I just knew that if the baby was right next to me, I'd never get any sleep at all because I'd be too focused on every little noise he made.

But like everything else about having a baby, the reality was far different than my expectations. When we brought Milo home, I never even considered having him sleep in his crib that first night. He fell asleep in my arms, then slept in the pack-n-play at the foot of our bed. And when he cried and wouldn't fall back asleep, Andrew snuggled him close and brought him into our bed. Until Monday night, this was our routine.

The one thing I was right about was that he would keep me awake with those little baby noises. Each night after I laid him down after feeding, he'd grunt and squeak so much, I was sure he was spitting up or choking or SOMETHING terrible. So I'd hop up and check on him. Twice. And over the last week or so, it became harder and harder for me to fall back asleep. I found myself lying awake for thirty minutes or more after each time I got up. Do the math on that: baby who won't fall asleep until 11:00 + two to three feeding sessions (40 minutes each) x 30 minutes of extra awake time = NOT ENOUGH SLEEP.

So we tried it. We made sure our baby monitor worked and we put him to bed in his own room. It was wonderful. Milo slept just as well, but now his grunts were filtered through the white noise of a small electronic device. We moved the night light out into the hall and finally got to sleep in an unlit room. I had forgotten how awesome it is to sleep in actual darkness. And it was so much easier to fall asleep. And Andrew only went in to check on him two or three times, so overall I'd call this new development a success.

Pfffftttts! I can has mah sleep anywheres!