I told Sarah two nights ago that I felt almost like I had been away at war and I was finally home in my own bed. We had been sharing our bed with Maia, or I had been sleeping in another room with Keana until Tuesday, May 26, we began to sleep-train Maia. You may remember our first attempt, which we abandoned for various reasons, but now in the new place, it was time. Sarah had finally had it, spending over an hour nursing and rocking Maia to sleep every night, half the time without success. With Maia’s refusal to stay asleep, we didn’t know what else to do except let her walk around and be ridiculously cute, until she finally got so tired and said, “Night-night”, at which point she’d generally nurse to sleep with ease. The downside of that was that Sarah really didn’t feel she had any time for herself, was very frustrated, and because Maia would go to sleep so late, she’d sleep in the next morning, throwing the whole next day off.

So Sarah set up the girls room—which they’ll eventually share—and when the going-to-bed ritual was finished, we said good night to Maia, closed the door, and walked away. Of course Maia screamed bloody hell, but only for about 20 minutes before falling asleep, on her own. She woke again around 10 p.m., fussed a little, then fell back asleep. During this training process (a week maybe?), Keana is sleeping at the foot of our bed on a sheepskin/”camping” bed, just so she doesn’t have to deal with Maia crying things out, but she’ll be in her own bed, in her own room pretty soon. Anyway, when I laid down that night, in my own bed, I realized I had been away for too long. Sarah and I hadn’t slept in our own bed together, just the two of us, since Maia was born. It wasn’t exactly glorious, because we were worrying about Maia, it was hot as hell, we were getting used to the new set-up ourselves, and I think our minds were spinning with what this really meant. After all, self-soothing and sleeping on your own is really a big step in life when you think about it. So I think both our minds were spinning with the fact that Maia was really growing up and getting one more notch in her independence belt. There’s so many great things about it that it’s hard to be sad, but still, letting go of your kids like that is definitely one of the most difficult things as a parent, and we know this is still in the “just beginning” phase.

At 1:20 a.m. that first night, Maia woke up and cried and cried until about 2 a.m., when Sarah finally went in to check on her. She was so sad she over-nursed and eventually threw up, so Sarah finished out the night with her. But we stuck to the routine last night, letting Maia cry herself to sleep, which only took 10 minutes! And on just the second night, she slept all the way through the night, a lone little soldier, until around 6 a.m. A proud moment for crazy little Maia and a great step toward getting settled in the 559.