* Warning, this blog talks about poop*
The Co-sleeping thing we took a lot of grief for, which frankly was annoying because it was born out of absolute necessity that most people have the good fortune to never understand. When Sully finally came home from the NICU, he slept in his own crib because there were scary tubes and tanks of oxygen involved. It was also summer and Sully is a furnace, too hot to sleep next to. After a couple of months he was able to thrash around and use his arms and took to pulling out his nose canula, making his Oxygen level drop and his alarm go off 12-20 times a night, requiring me to get up and readjust his canula and then wait for his Oxygen levels to stabilize, this separate from the normal newborn feeding schedule. So we moved him into bed with us and it became a lot easier for us to keep the Oxygen tubes in his nose. I also started reading up on co-sleeping and discovered there were plenty of benefits far beyond my sanity. Many studies show that children who co-sleep have a greater sense of self confidence and are more independent then kids who sleep alone. The thinking is that the child who co-sleeps knows that they have their parents support because the parent is there for them as they transition in and out of sleep all night, while a child who has to sleep alone has to rely on his/herself only to make these transitions, there is no one there to help them. Because the first child knows he/she has the support of the parents, he/she is more confident throughout the day. Of course the counter argument here is that the co-sleeping child becomes dependent on the parent to get through the night and doesn't learn to do it on their own... ever. That was a concern and a source of doubt along the way, Sully didn't sleep through the night until well after his first birthday and there were plenty of days where I thought I was s-c-r-e-w-e-d. But, Sully was and is a very confident little man, he is outgoing, he is brave, daring, he plays independently, he trusts us to introduce new foods, he plays well with others. He is quite simply a great kid.
The things I read said that kids would usually want their own bed on their own, and said that 3 was the average age (Yikes said I). But we started noticing signs last month that he might be ready, and frankly, we were ready too. So we got a little toddler bed and went to set up, expecting to hunker-down and have a rough week or more getting him to sleep on his own.
Well, (and here finally is the part about us being awesome parents). Sully wouldn't even wait for me to get the sheets on it. He was so excited. He climbed up, laid down and started fake snoring. (hysterical.) That night, he went right to sleep after stories and slept straight through until morning, nap time was just as easy. Sully is amazing no doubt, but damn it, we did a good job on that decision, he is so confident and secure in himself that transitioning to his own bed was not difficult at all.
And now on to the bumbling parent part. So we are potty training Sully, even though most people I know wait much much longer to do it with their kids, and there is very little information out there for potty training this young. Its going fine, I believe its going to take some time since he's so young, but I believe we will still be done well before most people even start, so its worth it. Sully has mastered the morning pee, he usually holds it until we get him on to the potty. He is aware of when he needs to go, he says "ewwwwwww" when then urge comes on....usually, not always though, a lot of the time Mike or I just see him getting the look and get him off to the potty. Today however, we were off our game, big time. 4 poops today (yes four, and that is not unusual for clean colon boy) and we caught each one halfway out. poop on the potty seat, poop on him, poop on me. Disgusting. Oh well, we'll just try again tomorrow.
