New Baby Adventures: moving Cara into her own room!

Have you ever heard so many horror stories with something you were about to experience and it made you want to not go through it at all. Maybe by keeping things as they are it wouldn't be easy, but you weren't about to change it up and experience what others were warning you about. I mean you've gone this long with how it's been, why risk making it worse?

 

That was my thought process when it came to moving Cara into her own room. For one, everyone kept telling me she'd probably have a hard time sleeping in her own room after being in ours for 6 months (sorry, but SIDS scared the living daylights out of me and I wasn't about to move her to her room until I felt we were out of the scary zone). Plus I kept reading that other babies got so used to being in a bassinet or pack n play that moving them into something new would rock their world enough that they wouldn't sleep through the night. We had finally reached a point where Cara was sleeping through the night regularly. Did I really want to mess that up just so that I could get ready for bed without worrying about waking her up with the noise? Or what about how we'd tip toe into our room when we were going to go to bed and I'd freak out if we made any noise that would wake her up. It was stressful, sure, but once we laid in bed things were great and we'd all sleep really well. Not to mention: what if the owlet went off when she was in her room. 99% of the time it was a false alarm with us (there was only 1 time where I think it might have been a legit alarm), but to run into her room and being so much further away didn't make me feel better. Plus I had ever intention of closing her bedroom door so that the cats didn't wake her up and we could continue watching TV or doing stuff downstairs without waking her up (her room faces the loft-like overhang into our living room) so to me I viewed that as one more obstacle if something went wrong.

All that aside, I knew I was getting more ready when I wasn't sleeping very well because she was moving around so much at night that it was waking me up (I thought she was waking up) and each morning with a yawn I'd tell Larry "tonight is the night, we're moving her tonight". Then once I got home from work I'd be used to my exhaustion and become a sentimental fool and say "no, we can't move her tonight, I'm going to miss her too much". I think by the eighth time of me doing this Larry just knew to not really believe "tonight is the night" anymore. Finally one day I said "okay, at 6 moths old, she'll be ready, I just need to rip off the band aid and get past the first week and I'm sure I'll be fine!". First week, ha! After the first night I was sold!

Having the video monitor
Makes it SO much easier :)

We spent the week before her 6 month mark spending nights (after dinner, but before bed) in her room (she'd play on the floor and we'd just kind of watch her) so that she'd be used to the room and it wouldn't seem so strange to her. We would lay her in her crib for a couple minutes so it wouldn't be SO foreign to her and then we'd go get her ready for bed in our room and put her down. That first night we moved her I made sure we kept the same bed time routine (it was nice it just happened to be on a day with shots and we didn't let her take her evening nap so that she'd be super worn out) and put her down. We had a habit of brushing our teeth before we turned on the monitor so that we didn't go back in right away and let her adjust to it. By the time we had turned it on, she was already passed out. She slept SO well that first night. The owlet did go off once, but I turned it off on my phone, checked her on the video monitor (she was fine), and we fell back asleep. I decided the owlet wasn't worth it anymore (she was too mobile and I think she was knocking the sensor off) so we put her down without it the next night and...she still slept like a champ. I thought we might have gotten lucky the first night with the shots and no nap, but she was still doing so great. I was in heaven...or as close to is as I could think of. I had a baby who moved seamlessly into her own crib/room, I could finally get ready for bed without worrying about waking her up, and I had my side of the room back in peace and quiet! It was pure bliss. We're now to a week mark and I don't think I could be happier. No, I don't wish we had moved her into her room sooner, I waited till I was ready and felt she was ready, and now that we don't have the owlet waking us up we all sleep so much better. Plus Cara is good at putting herself back to sleep if she wakes up so we really don't ever have to go in there.

Raising our hands in celebration (or baby stretches) that
She transitioned to her room so easily!

I'm pretty sure I have the easiest baby on the planet and for that I'm so very thankful. Lets hope all the rest of our kids are just as easy...haha!