On Saturday night, I slept in the air mattress we set up next to Kaia’s crib, with the front rail removed. While she fussed a couple times through the night, she mostly just needed the pacifier back in her mouth, as well as to get a brief back rub (she mostly prefers to sleep on her stomach at this stage). At around 2am, she fussed and needed to be comforted, so I pulled her off the crib mattress and onto my chest so that she could fall asleep on top of me, and eventually put her back on her back on the crib mattress. She slept soundly all the way until about 7am on Sunday morning. I opened my eyes at about 7:12am, and I found her sitting on her knees on her crib mattress, staring down at me, probably wondering when mommy would finally wake up.

Then last night, at Chris’s suggestion, I snuck out of the room after her first mini fuss, at around 12:30am. I went back to our own bed and slept there, checking on her twice through the night to make sure she was okay. She slept all by herself in her room until around 6am, when Chris woke up and saw her standing at the crib, waiting for us to get her. He went to retrieve her and brought her back to our bed, where she slept for another 45 minutes before waking up. It was like in the old days, before the Australia trip, when she happily slept in her crib but would occasionally want to join our bed in the early morning.

It took a while to get here, but I hope this keeps up. I want her to feel safe and comfortable in her crib, in her own room, without us there. I just hope no future trip disrupts this and causes her separation anxiety to come back again.