Chair

So, Daniel has been giving me a hard time putting him to bed for a while. I've been rocking him to sleep since he was a baby - then sitting in the chair in his room with him until he drifted off. A few months ago I finally got to a point where I could put him in his crib while he was still awake, but I had to stay in the room with him until he fell asleep. I had tried leaving the room, but since he learned to crawl out of his crib, that no longer worked because he would simply come out of his room looking for me.

I didn't mind sitting in his room while he drifted off to sleep. It gave me a chance to relax in the dark for a bit. I even fell asleep a few times when I was really tired. However, Daniel recently started taking longer and longer to fall asleep. On some nights I've had to sit there for almost 45 minutes. If I tried to get up before Daniel fell asleep, he would call out "Daddy, sit in the chair!" and I'd have to start all over again. It wouldn't have been so bad except on most nights I haven't had dinner yet so sometimes I wasn't eating until after 9pm.

Kate suggested I start moving the chair closer and closer to the door to start to break the habit. In order for this to work I would have had to completely rearrange the furniture in his room and that just wasn't going to happen. So, the other night, when it was clear it was going to be a long night in the chair, I simply carried the chair out of the room. Daniel, of course, cried and cried, but he finally settled down as I stood in the open doorway, and it wasn't another five minutes or so until he fell asleep.

The chair is still in my room. And for the past couple of nights I've been able to walk away from the open doorway while Daniel was still awake without him getting upset. It looks like I'm getting close to finally breaking the bad habit that I guess I started in the first place.