Bad Associations

In our home D is the night time parent- well I still do the nursing at night (usually just once...usually) but he puts L down however many times needed.  But D isn't always here or his schedule is such that he can't be on night time duty.  And thats a problem.  D has become the go to parent in the evening because L does better with him- maybe it's the lack of boob or the calm of daddy- but L will fall asleep much faster with D.  Initially L freaks out when he realizes it's time for bed and momma is doing a warm hand off.  It's actually pretty hilarious/predictable to see happy go lucky L instantly flip into angry L when dada walks in the room wearing the boba.  But very quickly he settles and goes to sleep.

Now D is gone some nights or works very late- and I am on duty.  I really dislike those nights.  Ever since we moved L has had an even harder time going to sleep for me.  We nurse, we walk, we rock, we talk- sometimes it feels as though nothing works.  The other night after several wakings and a 2 hr attempt at getting him back down I put L in his crib.  And the sam,e thing happened that always does- L screamed, and cried, and begged for mama.  I was exhausted and even with hearing his distress was more relaxed laying in my own bed...but only for about 20 minutes.  The crying didn't stop and L was very upset.  So I scooped him up and brought him into my bed.  L nursed his frustrations away but I was sore and done with being a human pacifier so I popped him off.  He started to protest and I said- "do you want to go in the crib?"  He shook his head and said "no".  So I replied, "then go to sleep".   I rolled over and HE WENT TO SLEEP!  This may sound like no biggie- but this is a child who has never (except when ill with a fever) gone to sleep in a bed while not nursing.

Ok so this is great news and I'm a horrible parent- the great news is he self soothed enough to get to sleep and he understood the concept of crib or sleep.  But the horrible part is now the crib is a bad associations, it's a punishment, or a consequence of not going to sleep.  And the worse part is I have used it again to get him to fall asleep (didn't work as well the second time).  I think when the time come we will have to do a real bed (not use his crib in toddler bed mode) to get him to sleep in his room...