Meo's big night

Tonight was a really big night for my Meo! Robbie and I were reading him bed time stories, and after a while he laid on his bed (still a toddler mattress on the floor) and said "Mama milk" like he usually does. So Robbie said, "goodnight" and turned off the light as he left and I laid down beside Meo and nursed him for a minute or so. Since I don't have very much milk left, and he knows I don't like it when he pacifies anymore, he stopped once the milk was gone and rolled onto his back and said, "milk all done, go sleep". Now usually I just lay down beside him and either hug him, pat his back/hair, sing to him, and/or just be present until he falls asleep. Sometimes I have Robbie come in to take over if I am too uncomfortable to lay on the floor anymore. But tonight, after he said "milk all done, go sleep" he added "mama, go take shower". Now, please note that I had told Robbie that I was planning on taking a shower after I nursed him, and apparently he had been listening. Or maybe I just smell bad and he wanted me out. So I asked him if he wanted to go to sleep all by himself and he insisted on "mama, go take shower". Meo has NEVER gone to sleep without one of us laying by his side. But I decided to see what would happen. So I told him I loved him, to have sweet dreams, to close his eyes and go to sleep and to say "Dada" if he needed help to sleep (Robbie was in our room listening on the monitor). I helped him situate on his pillow, and he demonstrated how well he could close his eyes by squeezing them really tightly closed, then I said goodnight and quietly left the room. When I went into our room, Robbie was baffled as to what I was doing out so soon. He listened on the monitor while I took a shower, and after I got out he shocked me by saying Meo didn't make a peep the whole time. I was so curious, I simply had to go in and check on him, and there he was, laying in the exact spot I left him sound asleep. We were/are amazed. I really didn't think he was going to be able to fall asleep on his own. But here we are, at age 24 months with a big boy who fell peacefully asleep in his own bed for the very first time. It's hard to believe that really just happened.

And I just have to add that over the past two years, we've gone to Meo needing to be attached to my breast all night long in our bed, to sometimes me being able to sneak away for an hour or so to do my own thing at night, to spending the first hour or two in his own bed before he woke up and we brought him to us (around 10 months), to him not waking up from his bed until 5-7 and then coming to our room (23 months), to me not needing to nurse him to sleep this past month, to his big breakthrough tonight. We didn't have to do any sleep training, and sometimes we were worried that I would still be nursing him all night in our bed when he was seven years old, but here we are. And he did it all on his own time in his own way with all the love and support we could give him. I'm so proud of him, and feel so relieved that we never had to go through a period that made him or us uncomfortable or scared; that our inclination towards attachment parenting has successfully led us to where we wanted to be no sooner than we were ready to be there. So if you are at the beginning of this journey, and are worried about ever reaching the destination without having to do some kind of training, take comfort that IT WILL happen naturally and you don't have to feel guilty about giving your little one time to get there.