The Night Before He Turned One

Here I am, sobbing over my pre-packaged Thanksgiving dinner that was on sale at Costco. Thanksgiving was three weeks ago, thus the sale.

Tomorrow is my son’s first birthday– thus, the tears. 

Tonight, I tucked my baby into bed for the last time.

Tomorrow, he will be a toddler. Tomorrow, my son turns one whole year old. 

It’s such an incredible thing, and it’s going to be a truly happy day. Yet, what I never saw coming was this immense feeling of grief. I’ve tucked my son in countless times this past year. There were even multiple bedtimes in a single night for months. But tonight hit me differently. Tonight’s bedtime hit heavily.

These days, after the bedtime routine of changing into pajamas and a fresh diaper, putting Aquaphor practically everywhere, and brushing what little teeth are actually there, my son and I lie together on a daybed in his room beside his crib. I turn on a sound machine, a low-light lamp, and we cozy up as he has one more baba–sorry, bottle–for the night. Sometimes he’ll finish the bottle and still need to be lulled to sleep. Sometimes he’ll get drowsy, finish the bottle, then pass out right there beside me. Then I gently transfer him into his crib. Other times, it’s me, in the dark, trying anything and everything until my arms are sore from rocking him. 

Tonight, however, on the eve of the rest of his life, he fell asleep before I realized it. He didn’t even finish the bottle. He just detached, nuzzled his head against my side, closed his eyes, and drifted to sleep. It was one of the quickest bedtimes I've ever had with him. I wasn’t prepared for it to be over so fast. Realizing that my baby had just fallen asleep for the last time, I lay there awhile longer and began to cry. 

Suddenly, I felt the entire load of sentimentality from the past year. It was as if all the moments I chose to lean into survival over being emotionally present caught up with me. As though all the moments from this past year—our first year with our son—finally came back to have their moment in my heart. 

Our first season together began on Christmas Day when we brought our baby boy home from the hospital. That winter was our first season as a family. These early days were so special, though the nights felt like endless survival. We were still finding our footing as parents. Bedtime back then looked different. 

There were multiple “bedtimes” throughout the night because newborns need to be fed every two to three hours to maintain healthy growth. So, under the glow of a low-light lamp, at who knows what time of night, I used to sit on the side of our bed with my feet resting on a step stool that my husband carefully chose for my comfort. I had a pillow strapped around my waist that I would lie our newborn on to feed while I slumped over, half awake. We had a bassinet on my side of the bed. I would transfer the baby over when I thought he had fallen deep enough asleep, which was usually at least an additional half hour. I was so paranoid about waking him before we needed to. One night, after working so hard to get our baby to sleep, I was so afraid of accidentally waking him that I just sat there awake, on the side of our bed, half my shirt on, and wearing a pillow like a belt, with him in my lap for hours.

Transferring the baby into his bassinet was such a delicate dance–a combination of his fragility and our inexperience. He couldn’t hold his head up yet. His movements were nonsensical. I was emotionally and physically adjusting to the changes in my body while learning about and caring for his. It was hard. But there were moments when I swore he could tell that I was the one holding him. He knew it was Mama. He trusted me, and for a new mama like me, who second-guessed everything she did, that was all I needed to begin to trust in myself.

Spring came, and our baby boy bloomed. He couldn’t fit in the bassinet or on my belted pillow anymore. The bedtime routine moved from my sitting on the side of our bed to a large chair in the corner of our bedroom. In the early evenings, we would turn on the low-light lamp and swaddle him in our bed. A white-noise sound machine was our background music and ambiance. I would sit in this massive orange chair, put a large pillow on my lap, lay the baby down on it, and feed him until he fell asleep. Most nights, it worked. Other nights, I bounced and rocked and paced the bedroom until he finally gave in to sleep. Then, still a delicate dance, but more coordinated than before, I would transfer him.

Thankfully, he was growing at a healthy rate and no longer needed to be woken up to feed through the night. We would only feed him at night “on demand”. The thing was, he was still “demanding” milk every two to three hours. He was four to six months old then, old enough to grow steadily, but not old enough to let us sleep. What I remember about this time was that there was a particular challenge in knowing we didn’t need to wake up every couple of hours. But now, my heart is smothered by the sweetest sentiment that he needed us for more than milk in the dark of the night. He had grown past just his biological needs. What he sought now was cuddles, love, and security—with a side of milk.

Then came summer. Our baby boy was six to nine months old during this season. We moved his wooden crib from the nursery to our bedroom. He could wiggle, roll, and swing his arms every which way at this point, making the old method of lying him on a pillow in my lap nearly impossible. So, we would swaddle him in our bed, scoot him over, cuddle right up next to him, and give him his bedtime bottle. He was still feeding on demand through the night, so we continued to survive on a series of inconsistent naps. Believe it or not, this is not a sustainable way to live. Often, we would pass out in our bed right next to him during the bedtime routine. I’d wake up to him cuddled up beside me, warm, relaxed, and peacefully asleep. He would drift off to sleep under our arms, sometimes with the bottle hanging out of his mouth. Then I would try another version of our delicate dance to his crib, which was lower than any of his others.

In these months, we were visited by lots of friends and family, wanting to send their love to our new little family. It was surreal to watch as people from our past held our beautiful little future in their arms. They would come over, play with the baby, and be kind enough to want to hang around until after bedtime to spend time with mama and papa. These bedtimes, something different seemed to happen. As everyone else remained in our living room and my husband and I brought our baby into our room for bedtime, he seemed to notice that suddenly, it was back to just us three—and he would get a burst of joy. He was suddenly playful and energetic, rolling around our bed, giggling and smiling, trying to escape from putting on his pajamas. At the time, it would worry me because he needed to get to sleep, and the bedtime routine is not to be trifled with. But this energy surge wouldn’t last long, and he would end up even more tired than when we walked into the room. But now, I see how much it touched our hearts. That was when we realized—he knows us. He knows that even though there are other people in the house, we’re his home.

When autumn began, our baby was nine months old, and it suddenly felt like milestones were coming at us left and right. As though learning to roll over a few months back had set him on a slippery slope to sitting up on his own, crawling, and pulling himself up to stand. With these milestones, he became more aware. He still fell asleep in the crook of my arm, lying in our bed beside me, but the delicate dance wasn’t as easy as it used to be. He was aware now. When I would peel myself away and stretch my arms to place him in the crib, he’d wake up and flail until I curled him back into my embrace and bounced until he fell asleep again. At the time, it was frustrating. He wouldn’t get peaceful rest with me passing him back and forth like that, and clearly, neither would I. Eventually, when my arms were jello, he’d remain asleep as I put him down. At least until it was time for my husband and me to go to bed in the same room. It was as if he could suddenly tell whenever we came in.

So, this became the month we started sleep-training. Well, the month my husband sleep-trained our baby. I had to be in the furthest room possible with headphones on. Thankfully, our little guy caught on quickly and was soothing himself back to sleep in less than ten minutes within a week. It wasn’t easy, but as the days went by, he slept longer and longer through the night.

When we would quietly brush our teeth in the master bathroom around the corner from his crib, we could hear him begin to stir. Panicked, we would turn off the lights, and, standing in the dark silence of our bathroom, we would wait, hoping and praying that the baby would fall back asleep. If he did, we would stealthily emerge and tiptoe into our bed. We would whisper our good nights in our own room, but even then, he still seemed to wake up. 

This system wasn’t good for anyone’s sleep anymore.  

At ten months, we moved our little guy into his own bedroom. It was strange. I thought about how on some nights, I had just enough energy to soak in these fleeting, special moments. Others, I was so depleted from the day, bedtime became muscle memory. I would go on autopilot and just hope he would peacefully fall asleep.

Now in the baby’s own room, we would cuddle together on a little daybed beside the crib. Our delicate dance was in a different room now, but still the same. I found myself holding him in my arms just a moment longer before transferring him over and saying good night.

He began to sleep through the night in his own room. So did we in ours. 

But I couldn’t help but miss hearing his soft snores or him rolling around in his crib from the corner of our bedroom. 

Then winter came back around. With the colder air came not just the memories in my mind, but in my body. It remembers that last winter, we were in the newborn trenches. Tough as they may have been, at least we were all warm and cuddled together. 

Having a baby comes with sleepless nights, that’s for sure. But what I didn’t know at the time was that what I lacked in sleep, I gained in love, memories, sentiment, and the most special bond I’ve ever experienced.

On any other night, I would have tried to lie still and quiet for a few more minutes to be sure he fell properly asleep. Then I would’ve transferred him into his crib and scurried out the door.

Tonight, I couldn’t help but hold him a little longer, a little tighter, and with extra kisses as I whispered,

“I’ve loved every season of who you’ve been, and I will love every person you become.

I love you, little one. Happy birthday.”