Mommy confession.

Tonight Kai is sleeping in his room as I write this. It is the first time ever that he has been in his own room at night. When he was a wee baby he slept in a Snuggle Nest in our bed. Then he slept in his crib in our room. Somewhere around six months he started spending part of the night with us in bed and then slowly he transitioned to being there all of the time. Bed sharing is not for everyone, but it has really worked well for us as a family. His presence in our bed developed as a by-product of night feedings. I was getting up with him and then would fall asleep in the chair while nursing. I would wake up just before he would be getting ready to nurse again and then I would start all over again. Uncomfortable and unsafe. So, we got a bed rail and I started to bring him into bed after he woke for the first time after I went to bed. I have never had a problem sleeping through nursing sessions, so it was a perfect solution for me to get more rest at night. Jake, who has never picked up a Dr. Sears book except maybe to move it from the table, said something along the lines of that it made sense for us to be together as a family at night, since we don't stop being a family when we go to bed. I didn't intend for Kai to sleep in his bed tonight. We were going to just do naps in his bed for awhile and then start having him start out the night in his room in a little while. Then, tonight he told me that he wanted to nurse and I said that we should go to bed then. He said, "Yeah, bed." He took off out of the playroom and ran into his room, turned on the fan and crawled into his bed. I am sure that he will still wake up and that he will probably come to bed with me at some point tonight. Right now, it is feeling like a major change is occurring. I know that there are a lot of people who think that it is foolish to sleep with one's children, some of the people reading this agree with those people. Having Kai in our bed has meant that we all get to have a restful night close to one another. And, really, I cannot even find words that describe how fantastic it is to wake up with our son, smiling, happy to see us and ready to start a new day. I don't think that our co-sleeping days are entirely over yet, but when they are, I know that there will be a part of me that mourns the change.