Bedtime Blessings

While there have been many challenges in the last few days as we've adjusted to life as a family of four, there has been one area that has gone so much better than we ever dreamed. We expected sleep to be a major issue for our little guy, but surprisingly this has been one of the easiest aspects of Nathan's homecoming. I hesitate to share about it because I know so many others have had such difficult times when they've brought home their children (and please know that we had a lot more trouble with Matthew - and still do!), but I wanted to share some of the positives and to show that not everything has been really difficult.

I am still shocked about this, but Nathan has been pretty much sleeping through the night since the first day we met him. This is incredible considering all he has been through and the fact that there is a 13 hour time difference between us and Korea! He is sometimes up once in the night but now we are only awake for a few minutes and don't even have to leave the bed to get him back to sleep.

It is kind of funny to me, but this adoption has shown me that I should never say never, because although I swore that I would never co-sleep (because I am such a lousy sleeper as it is), Nathan spends his nights comfortably nestled between me and Brad :) It was just so obvious to us from the very beginning that he needed to sleep with us. In Korea, he slept on a futon mattress on the floor with his foster mom. We could tell that he was confused and scared and sleeping with us just seemed like the natural and right thing for us to do.

For the first few nights when he would wake up crying, I would reach for him and he would climb right on top of me and fall back asleep. Then he started cuddling up to me or Brad; now he just sleeps between us. He seemed to need that reassurance that we were there with him and then he'd go back to sleep again.

And I have to say, when he is sleeping, I cannot stop staring at him! He has the most beautiful, softest skin ever. He has the sweetest little lips and is just so precious. I love the way he tucks up with his arms and legs under him!

We knew that we did not want to co-sleep forever (or even for that long if possible) but we want to make sure that Nathan is okay. We have been talking about trying the crib to see what happens but we didn't want to freak him out. Today Brad decided to give it a try (I love that man - he is always braver than I am!) and he took him in for his nap, put him in the crib, gave him his bottle, and laid down on an air mattress in the boys' room to see what would happen.

You know what happened?

Within minutes, he fell asleep! Without a single tear!

All our worrying for nothing! He was not at all bothered, took his nap in there and woke up happy. Crazy! I think we are going to keep putting him in the crib for naps and in a few nights hopefully he will be sleeping in there at nighttime too.

I am so thankful that he's a good sleeper. I am still feeling pretty bad from the mono and am having a hard time as it is - I can't imagine if he was up all night how I would manage. It is certainly such an answer to prayer and we are so grateful he's a good sleeper! Now maybe we can get him to teach Matthew how to sleep through the night...