Sans soother, day one

I didn't wake up this morning thinking, "This is it! No more soother." Nope. Those who know me know I'm a terrible procrastinator. So even though I've been thinking about getting rid of the thing since just before Italy I was no closer to actually doing it. I worried terribly about how bad the crying would be, especially for Kris, who I felt couldn't afford to loose sleep during the week, and selfishly not wanting to loose sleep on the weekend myself. But, (perhaps even more selfishly) I don't want to have to negotiate the soother away from him when he's old enough to be sad for the loss and mad at me for causing his pain. So I knew it had to be done.

Lately Kris has been bringing the soother in with Owen in the mornings because he's been cranky after the morning feed.

Yea, Kris gets up every morning and brings Owen to our bed for me to breastfeed. It's very sweet I think.

Anyway, Owen sucks on the thing for a bit and then likes to:
-take it out,
-look a it from all angles,
-bite the sucky part while pulling it out of his mouth,
-try to stick the whole thing in his mouth (which I watched him do with more success than I think was safe),
-and shake it like a rattle in his hand.

It was during that last part that the soother flew out of his hand and fell through the rungs on our headboard. Well, it is an absolute disaster under our bed so I didn't want to get it right then.

By the time nap time rolled around I still hadn't managed to get up the courage to brave the underneath, so I just put him to bed without the soother. Everything else I kept the same - his story, closing the blinds and saying "Night, night" to the sunshine, just no soother.

I left like I always do, closed the door a bit and listened to him wail like he was possessed by a demon for the next 25 minutes. I went in there to watch him and try to reassure him that he could fall asleep like a big boy. It was pretty futile. He writhed around from front to back, back to front all over his bed, grabbing at the rungs of the crib. I felt pain in the pit of my stomach and also felt like laughing. It was so awful it was comical, like some James T. Kirk emoting wannabe. I couldn't take it anymore so I left his room.

And then, it stopped. Five minutes later I went in and he was sleeping. And he slept for almost the next three hours. I honestly thought he'd cry for an hour the first time without his soother and I wasn't sure I could take it for that long.

Later, we went down to Stampede to meet Grandma Chris. We saw the dream home, ate dinner and walked the exhibits. We didn't leave until 8. I drove my mom home so naturally Owen fell asleep in he carseat. Probably not the most ideal situation in which to continue this experiment, but hey, go hard or go home. I assumed if there was 20 minutes of wailing today that there'd be maybe 10 tonight. Nope. Wrong again. He hummed to himself for about 15 minutes and then he was asleep. It's now 11:15 and I've heard him stir slightly once.

I am blessed with the best baby in the world. At least for now.