My Sleeping Angel

There have been so many things with Braedyn that we thought we'd never figure out or get through... such as feeding solids, using a sippy cup, learning to chew and swallow table foods, getting rid of the bottle and pacifier, etc. And somehow, everything seems to work itself out. Well, we've been trying to figure out how we were going to get Braedyn to start going to bed on his own instead of us rocking him. I'm not even sure how we ended up rocking him...

We trained Braedyn to fall asleep on his own from when he was just a few months old. And he did it with no problem. Then around 10 months, he was really sick and I had to hold him upright until he fell asleep since he was so congested - which started the rocking-to-sleep phase. So I happily rocked him for the week he was sick... and then that turned into a month... and then a few more months! So now we were back to square one, and desperate to find a way to stop the rocking.

And then it happened... starting about a week ago, when we would rock Braedyn to sleep, he'd lay his head on mine or Ben's shoulder, and then start to flop around all over the place. We realized he wasn't comfortable being rocked anymore and needed his freedom to stretch out and move around (serious high maintenance child here!). So, we decided to just lay him in his crib to see if he'd fuss, but he miraculously went to sleep quietly on his own.

So we're really excited about Braedyn's latest accomplishment. The other thing he started doing too is when I'm changing his clothes, he steps out of his shorts now. He's been pushing his arms through the shirt sleeves for a long time now, but stepping out of his shorts is pretty impressive, huh? Such a big boy he's becoming!!

And speaking of big boy - tomorrow is Braedyn's first day in the Toddler room at school. I'm a bit sad about it, but I'm sure he'll do just fine. The toddler room gets outside time everyday, which I know he'll thoroughly enjoy. He loves being outside. And the best thing of all... he'll switch to one 2-hour nap a day instead of two short naps. That will be like a little piece of heaven on the weekends. I'm very anxious to see how his first day in the Big Boy room will go. Unfortunately, I can't take him to school the next couple days due to my work schedule, so Ben has been instructed to ask certain questions so we can see how things went. So basically, when I ask Ben what Braedyn's teachers said, I'll get the typical male response "he did fine". I'm actually willing to put money down on that one!