Saturday, January 7, 2012

Separation Anxiety

I may have mentioned this before, but I'm a worrier.  I worry.  I can't really help it - it's in my genes.  My dear mother is also a worrier.  Whenever we were to do something mildly dangerous/not at all dangerous but far from where we were living at the time, she didn't want to hear about it until after it was over because she would worry too much.  It doesn't help that she has lived overseas for the majority of the time that her four older kids have been out of the house.

In any case, I worry too.  I worried plenty about Lewis/my siblings/my parents/everyone else I know before I had a baby.  But now that Jack is here... hoo boy.

Let's just say that it's no wonder I have more than my fair share of gray hairs at my plucky age of 25.

At his two-month appointment, Jack's doctor told me not to be in a hurry to kick him out of our room.  He recommended waiting until about four months to start that process.  That was fine by me.  It's a heck of a lot easier to check on your infant son's breathing if he is at the foot of your bed.  Plus he had yet to sleep through the night (more on that later), so having him in our room still was no burden whatsoever.

Jack turned four months yesterday.  At his appointment his doctor told me to go ahead and start the moving out process, but don't force it if he wasn't ready.  I smiled and nodded, confident that Jack wouldn't be ready.

He was ready.

True, it took him a while to fall asleep last night (we are trying, so far wildly unsuccessfully, to get Jack to fall asleep on his own), but once he was asleep in his own room, he was asleep for the night.  He slept peacefully until after six in the morning.  When he did wake up, he was as happy as a clam and just cooed in his bed until I went and got him.

And after four months of getting up at least once a night to tend to his needs (not to mention the last five months of my pregnancy when I was up several nights to pee), I finally got a good night's rest.

Jack doesn't sleep here anymore.
Oh wait, that definitely didn't happen.  I worry, remember.  Not only did it take me about a bajilion hours to fall asleep, I was up every so often, creeping into Jack's room to make sure all was well.  There was one tense moment when he rolled over just as I put my hand on his trunk and then I ran into his door on my way out, but he didn't wake up even then.

So thanks a lot, Mom, for the awesome genes.  Gosh!

1 comment:

elsalgal said...

I firmly believe in sharing. You're welcome.

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