Major Milestone: Sweet Sleep

Footie Pjs! All ready for bed!

**Note- I started this post on August 15th and forgot about it, so I finished it up today. :)

Over the weekend we hit a major milestone.. Weston finally went to just one feeding a night, which means 7-8 hours of straight sleep. I know some babies reach this milestone long before they are 4.5 months whether by luck or some form of sleep training, but for us it took a little bit longer and I'm ok with the route we took.
It seems like one of the biggest debates and decisions you'll have as a parent... where will the baby sleep when it's born? In a bassinet in your room? In it's own crib from day one? In bed with the parents? I really think there is no right or wrong answer to this question, it truly is just what you as a parent feel comfortable with and what you think is best for your baby. As a new mom I couldn't imagine putting my baby across the house in his own crib from day one, partly because of crazy fears about what might happen to him in the middle of the night, but also because I didn't want to have to go that far to feed him every night (I should note our house isn't big, it's simply a split floor plan with the master bedroom and others being separated by the living room). Weston slept with us for a few nights, but for the most part I slept terribly when he was next to me, and Weston did also. So for the majority of the past 4 months he's been in a Pack N' Play in our bedroom and it worked for us for that time.
Weston's sleep patterns have been quite erratic over the past month or so though. Some nights he'd have a 6 hours stretch, some nights he'd want to eat every 3 hours. I realize that some of the harder nights were due to growth spurts and what not, but they seemed to come too often for that always to be the case. I've been talking about "Ferberizing" him for a few weeks though, especially after his 4 month checkup when Dr. G assured me he could go for an 8 hour stretch, so this weekend I decided to finally follow through and see how he did.
Chris worked late on Saturday, so I began the bedtime routine by myself around 7:30. I had Weston in bed by 8:30 and he was asleep before 9. I promised myself he would stay in his crib, and that if he cried I would go in, pat his back to reassure him and then leave and see what happened. Words cannot describe how HAPPY I was when I didn't hear a peep out of him until 4 AM!! 7 hours of straight sleep for him, and about 5 for me since I had stayed up late waiting for Chris to get home. When he cried at 4 I went ahead and fed him (sitting in his room in the rocker) and then put him back down. He slept until around 7:30. It was amazing.
   Ever since that night we have followed the same routine, and he typically follows the same pattern. He wakes up for one feeding somewhere around 4-5 am and then goes back to sleep until somewhere between 7:30-8:30. Every once in a while he'll wake up again in, but if I leave him alone he usually falls back to sleep within 10 minutes, so we never really had to let him cry it out. I feel like a new woman with all this sleep, and I am so grateful that we have finally turned this corner!