Are we just "Lucky" ?

This last year has been nothing short of amazing. David has made me feel like I'm achieving more in my life now then I ever have before. In comparison to some other 1st time mother stories I feel like David and I have had it easy with our sweet boy.  He slept through the night within 2 1/2 months, I can never tell when he is teething because he always seems happy, he's a great eater, and he naps like  a champ.  I get a tad bit annoyed when people tell me I'm "lucky."  While this is true, David (husband) and I worked VERY hard to establish the routine and schedule we current live our life on, so I almost feel like that comment takes away from all our hard work.  Getting a new baby adjusted to sleeping the way they should is very challenging and you spend most of your time wondering if you are doing the right thing. I also am a firm believer that it doesn't have anything to do with luck.  I spent lots of mornings and afternoons crying and frustrated because I was taking a happy newborn baby and laying him down in his OWN crib to figure how to put himself to sleep and he would just cry.  As a first time mom it is never easy to hear your sweet baby cry, much less feel like it's your fault for laying him down. It was great having the support of my sister Shea, offering her advice and affirming that I was doing the right thing! 

I knew that having a baby would make life more...complicated and suddenly the simple things weren't going to be so simple. But, I  was determined that I wasn't going to make things harder for myself.  I didn't want our baby to get attached to certain things up front, like sleeping in our bed, or only falling asleep by only being held or rocked, or driving around in a car. So that left me one choice, to help our son figure out how to independently put himself to sleep (which is a learned skill). So I'd take my happy newborn, who had spent the first part of his day eating and being awake, up stairs and swaddled him up real tight and laid him down in his crib only to hear him cry.  Looking back I don't really remember how long he would cry for some times 15-20 minutes some times longer. But I do know that he was feed and dry so the only thing that left was being tired. I also don't remember how long it took for this him to figure his schedule out but once he figured it out nappingis a time he gets excited about.  Once he recognized his bed he would get excited when we would lay him down and cover him with is favorite blankie.  There were no more tears, not from me and not from him.

It wasn't much different when it came to sleeping through the night.  I began to notice that he would sleep five or six hours one night and then the following night he'd only go for 3hours.  After dealing with this for a couple of night I realized that when he was waking up after only 3 hours of being down, that he wasn't hungry, he just woke up and didn't know how to put himself back to sleep.  I began to let him "cry it out." (Oh no what a terrible mother, I let him cry lol) To my surprise at night he'd only cry for about 15 min. or so before he would go back to sleep. Yes, it would have been easier to just go pick him up and let him sleep with us or just nurse him back to sleep but learning to sleep is something we wanted for our son.
I want our son to be a independent while knowing that no matter what his parents are here to love and protect him.  We never wanted David to depend on us for sleep .  Yes sleeping babies are so cute and comfy and you want to snuggle them over and over, but if you stop and think about it, is that what is best for them in the long run? For our family the answer was no.  I know that not only would it affect David negatively it would do the same for me.  I need my sleep just as much as the baby does so that I could make it through all the other challenges that having a newborn brings. 
There are lots of things that a baby has to learn and sleep is just one of those many things.

So yes my toes curl and a get a little annoyed when people tell me we're "lucky" bc luck didn't bring us to where we are.... a lot of time and prayer did.