Wells Got The Boot

For the last almost three years, I've been pregnant and/or breastfeeding without one night of uninterrupted sleep. Three years, you guys. As I sat in that NYC hotel room, I had no idea what my nights would be looking like for the next few several years. I was naive. I had read Bringing Up Baby and thoroughly enjoyed it. Now I was growing a baby and with that came several night time wakings in order to drain my leaky bladder. Wells arrived earth side and I remember the daunting thoughts of being a new mother 'you mean he needs me 24-7' and 'I have to feed you again' and 'I just breastfed you for one whole hour! You can't be hungry again!'. I breastfed Wells until he was 18 months and 10 days old, a blink of an eye really. I miss it! We had a great relationship with breastfeeding. We weaned and I was a few months pregnant with baby number dos. Wells started doing his nights just about 67 weeks later than Parisian babes according to Bringing Up Baby.

Baby number two kept me up during my pregnancy 99% more than Wells did in utero. I was up pee-ing, restless, and downright miserable for the majority of the pregnancy. During the day, I was so exhausted and would try to nap as much as my active toddler would let me. I was done at 36 weeks. Done sleeping. As in, I was probably sleeping a collective three hours per night and still bed sharing with Wells. By bed sharing, I mean we attached our toddler to our queen size bed. He slept in his "crib" as a giant co-sleeper to accommodate my belly and seven pillows that were essential to my three hours of sleep.

Side note. I loved co-sleeping in bed and with the crib attached! My husband enjoyed it probably more than me. We loved having him close. While breastfeeding, it was ideal to have him in bed next to me. Before I was pregnant with Poppy, I was still waking 3-5 times a night throw him on the boob. I didn't feel like I lacked sleep. With Poppy arriving, we knew we wanted to transition Wells out of our room and into his own. This way we could room share with Poppy. (Poppy currently sleeps in a bassinet and is easily accessible for breastfeeding. At this time, I don't plan to co-sleep with her as I did Wells. That could change, but we are pleased with our current set up for now.)

In June, hope flickered and I started getting my bunt kick ready. My mom came to visit as a test run before we had the baby. Her visit also allowed Ted and I to go off island by ourselves. And we slept, in a king size bed, by ourselves for the first time in over a year. We also had central conditioning and it was blissful, but that is besides the point. During my mother's stay, Wells slept in a queen size bed upstairs with her, not us.  She left and we weren't ready to officially evict him from our room. So, we continued our nightly routine of co-sleeping with a giant co-sleeper crib which worked great.

The night before Poppy was born, I drop kicked Wells upstairs to Nana. I was up all night thinking about delivery, becoming a mom of two, and my fate of either newborn heaven or hell. The next few weeks, Wells continued co-sleeping with my mom in his new bed (the same queen bed, but we wanted him to take ownership).

Nana left.

And, Wells stayed sleeping upstairs alone!