Baby sleeps alone. A sad story....
Since his birth E has both laughed and cried in his sleep. This has fascinated me because, at birth, I couldn't imagine what he was dreaming about that would cause happiness or sadness. It became more rare as he got older - by 3 months old, he was still laughing in his sleep quite a bit, but rarely crying (self congratulatory pat on the back for happy baby here). When he did laugh in his sleep I still wondered about why - what he could be thinking/dreaming. By 5 months even the dream laughing was rare.
Last night I put him down to sleep in his crib. It wasn't the first time - at about 6 weeks (?) he went for a week sleeping every night in his crib, but then suddenly it was unacceptable. Screaming, crying, and generally NOT sleeping happened for HOURS when we put him down. Was I patient and consistent? Did i time his crying and let it go a little longer each night before comforting him? Did I read up on the Cry It Out theories? No. None of the above. I tried for 3 nights, the first night letting him cry (on and off) for over an hour, the second night 1 hour, the third 10 minutes. Yes. Little E had done *his* reading, clearly, because I was the one being trained. And that sits just fine with me. Night four he came to bed with me, and has since then.
Up until last night, that is.
So I set him down, and right away he began to cry. Not the screaming, shrieking cry of our first self sleeping attempt, but a sad, whispy, pathetic sleeping cry like newborn Elliot made. He was fast asleep, hands over head, not-moving-but-crying. This made me sad, because I felt like he was having lonely dreams. But, on the other hand, he does have to learn to sleep in his own bed. And he was asleep. I turned on the monitor and went to bed. At various times through the night I heard little dreaming sobs, but he never really woke up.
This morning he was happy to see me just before 7am. We had breakfast and hung out and played till just moments ago, when he fell asleep. I laid down next to him, and without waking he lit up with a huge smile, and began to laugh.
Wow, that fact that he cries when he is alone and laughed when you lay down with him freaks me out a little bit. Could he be any more direct?