Yay!!! He did it!

For the last 19 months, we have struggled with Micah and sleep. We have been up many hours at night, he has not wanted to take naps, and he refused to go to sleep by himself in his crib.  I always nursed him to sleep because I knew he would scream for hours on end. :(  Many people said I should just let him cry it out, but I can not do that! He would scream for HOURS!!

Anyway, we had a huge break through last night and I was soooo happy!! Usually at bedtime, he will do his sign for "milk" and we will sit down in the recliner and I will nurse him to sleep (As I catch up on the news at night.)  The last two nights, he did not give me the "milk" sign, so I didn't offer it. (We are down to two feedings during the day and once we drop the night one, we are just down to the morning feeding. I want him to wean himself, and would really like to be done before we leave for our trip in a month.)

Anyway, two nights ago when he didn't ask for milk, I got him some water and we sat in the living room and read books for a very long time! Eventually he just fell asleep in my lap. I put him in his bed and he was out for the night.

Last night, he didn't ask again, so I thought we would try to read books in his bedroom and do a bedtime routine like we do with the other girls. I picked out four books, which we read, and then we sang a couple of songs and prayed. I told him we were going to go to his bed and he needed to go to sleep. I really didn't want him to fall asleep on me. I want to get him into his bed and get him to go to sleep on his own.

I laid him down, shut the lights off, turned the white noise on, and sat down right beside his bed and sang a couple songs to him. He kept picking his head up to see if I was still there. :)  After about ten minutes, he was sound asleep!! I could hardly believe it!! I felt like jumping up and down right there in his bedroom!! He went to sleep all by himself in his bed!!

This opens up some new possibilities, like Matt putting him to bed! And I can be out at night and not worry about putting him to bed.

Now to get him to stop screaming the moment he wakes up in the morning!

Yay Micah!!!