NiNite Benjamin!

After 9 months of Benjamin sleeping like a champ, you all know he rocked my mommy world 2 weeks ago when his bottle was taken away, and his night time routine went haywire.  Well, the past 12 nights have been rough.  He's continued to sleep 10 or 11 hrs straight but, has shown that he would like to push the start time of his slumber back as FAAAAAAR as he can.  Well, last night, was the 9th night in a week and a half that over an hour of my evening was spent putting Benjamin down, listening to him cry for 20 minutes, and then a prolonged rocking to sleep period. (the other three nights, we got home so late he went down great)  I decided it was the last.

Tonight my game plan was a bath at 7, play time with the lights off, a book, and to have him in his crib before 8. It all went great, and around 7:50 he started getting more clingy, so I stood up and told Benjamin to say ninite to daddy.  He blew a kiss, and we walked to his room.  Joel mentioned orajel because he has been soooo drooly today and I knew it was risky, but when we got in his room we stopped at his changing table for some of the pain reliever.  We started singing the Sandy Patty Sunday School Sing Along, and he got fidgety, I tried sitting while singing and he remained unruly.  So I stood and he kept whining, and when he reached for his crib, I layed him down and said my farewells.  I left the room at 7:57 with him crying, and was prepared to let him go all night.  (I wouldn't have, but I had to tell myself I would so I at least had a good start.)  Well, I don't know the exact time, but he was done a few minutes after 8.  YAY!

Thanks for the advice everyone.  Time will tell if we have more tough nights ahead or if we're back in the clear!  I'm not sure if it was the fact that he only slept 45 minutes for a nap, the bath, the winding down period or the fact that he was in bed before 8...but we aren't changing anything for a week! (except maybe tomorrow night...unless we come back from the fair at a decent hour) With all that said, I can taste victory!