Mother's Day

For Mother's Day this year Mack gave me a wonderful gift... last night when I set him in his crib wide awake he watched me walk out of the room, closed his eyes and went to sleep without a peep. It seems the sleep training is finally settling in and that the little guy has learned to put himself to sleep.
Last Sunday night at 12:30am I tried rocking him, nursing him, swaddling him, singing to him, walking with him but he would not stop crying and go to sleep, so I laid him gently in his crib, grabbed my blanket and pillow from the bed and set up shop on the sofa prepared for a long night of him "crying it out". Miraculously, he only cried for 45 minutes and slept until the morning. For the past week I have coined myself the sleep Nazi. I'm sure I don't need to mention how difficult it is to hear your baby crying in the other room and consciously decide to not go to him... it goes against everything that your heart is telling you. The saddest part is that Mack has now made himself hoarse from "sleep learning". However, after all this crying and heartbreaking I have a baby who has now taught himself to close his tiny eyes and drift off to sleep.
It's funny though, for weeks all I wanted was a night of peaceful sleep and now I find myself missing holding him at 3:30am in his nursery. I miss feeling like there was no one else in the world but us and I would wait a little too long to put him back in his crib so that I could watch him sleep in my arms for a few more minutes.