long sleeps...

in my mind, i was going to leave our sleeping situation as is until leo was about 2 years old.  we all love our family bed...so that's not changing.  but the nursing thing...at 20 months old, leo still wakes up a couple of times a night, and nurses back to sleep.  there are nights when it's more than "a couple times" and nights when it's less.  and, for the most part, i've been okay with that.  but, recently, i've been feeling that it's just not as necessary...and even more importantly, that he can understand that it's not necessary.  so i started talking to him about it.  i started telling him other things that he can do when he wakes up...instead of nursing.  and that sometimes the milk goes to sleep.

this was all, in my mind, just the beginning to what i thought was eventually going to be a very rough patch of nights, when i would officially end the night nursing.

instead, the other night, when leo finished nursing before going to bed, he said to me, "mommy?  seep.  milk"  and i just sort of looked at him, and said, "um, yes!  the milk is going to sleep!"

and so the night nursing is coming to an end...

i don't feel nearly as bad as i thought i was going to.  and i think that's mostly because i know that he's okay.  when  he wakes up, and i tell him that the milk is sleeping, he gives a momentary protest, and then falls back asleep.  we have our crutches...some we'll keep to ourselves...but he's doing it.  we're doing it.

and i'm just so proud of him.  how well he's handling it all.  which, again, makes me more comfortable with making the change.

there is a little sense of sadness.  the end to a sweet ritual we had in the middle of the night...that was all our own...a little bond we'd share that was all ours...

but i know there will be others.  we're not rushing through this.  we are all getting a bit longer stretches of sleep.  which is definitely needed.  and appreciated.