Reminiscing

While I was pregnant with Blake I was determined not to have a child who needed to be held all the time. I was planning on having him sleep in my bed/ bassinet next to my bed for the first few months of his life. This was extremely convenient when he was waking up every 90 minutes during the night, and I loved the cuddle time with him during the night. I remember waking up in the middle of the night to feed him when he was just a week old and turning to my hubby and telling him "I don't even mind waking up with him... I love him SO much!" I had chosen to nurse him, but we had some pretty big issues with that (a story for another time). The day we were supposed to leave the hospital my poor baby was starving, my previously very happy baby could not stop crying and therefor wasn't sleeping well. Finally we decided to give him a little bit of formula and he calmed down. While we were packing up to leave and putting him in his carset, he got pretty sad again (poor sleep deprived baby). The only way I could calm him down was to place my face against his tiny face and make shushing noises. When we got home from the hospital I spend a lot of time cuddling with my sweet baby. He has been very loved my mom, dad, grandmas, grandpa, lots of aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. I swear, my baby gets more kisses than any other human being on this planet. My point is, he got plenty of love. However, I also made a large effort to put him down. He spent time in his swing, in his bouncer, on a blanket on the floor, etc. It was very hard sometimes, but there were evenings I would have to let him cry in his swing for a little bit while I finished dinner (it was never more than a few minutes). As he approached his 3 month "birthday" I started putting him in his crib for naps so he would start to get used to it. Around this same time he also moved to being completely bottle fed. Shortly after that, he started to show signs of wanting to be set down to go to sleep. He was a lot less interested is cuddling, and eventually we got the point that we would just lay him down in his crib with his binkie and he would put himself to sleep. It was totally blissful! It made naptime seem so much longer when I no longer had to rock him to sleep and carefully lay him down without waking him. Unfortunately this came with a downside--he started to cuddle less and less. He is a very happy baby and loves to be with people, but he goes crazy if he can't constantly be on the move. I have gone over and over things in my head. Could I have done things differently to make him more interested in cuddling with me? Should I not have set him down as much? Would things have been different if I had been able to breastfeed for longer? But truthfully I know this is not the case. It has everything to do with his personality. This is the way he has been since before he was born. My belly moved CONSTANTLY while I was pregnant. He was happy to be held when that was the only way he could get around, but as soon as he figured out he could roll over at 2 months he would rather move around by himself. This has it's obvious downsides, but I also try to look at the pros. It has been nice not to have to learn how to do everything one handed. He is happy to hang out so I can get a few things done, and most morning I'm actually able to spend some time getting ready (although it takes at least twice as long to get out the door as it used to). So although I miss cuddling my peanut, I love his little personality and playing with him all day. Honeslty, I wouldn't have in any other way!