Tucked Into His Own Bed

Kai slept in his own room last night (all night) for the first time! Adam and I decided to take the same parenting approach to Kai as we did Kirra, since we are happy with how we've raised her so far. He did great last night and slept fine as he did in our room as well. I of course had a monitor on in our room all night just in case I couldn't hear him since he's down stairs and I keep the kids' doors shut so the dogs will not chew their belongings. So we'll go for it again tonight and so on. I truly think its harder on the parent to make this transition than it is for the child. I stayed up late last night doing chores to help the late hours go by so i could check on him before I was completely asleep.

In the NICU I met with a therapist twice a week for a study I signed up for and we discussed parenting your preemie and how to deal with underlying emotions with various issues such as making a transition such as the one we have just made. I remember the therapist asking me a lot of questions about how I would treat Kai since he was an ex preemie and she would have me play out my reactions to certain scenarios. I remember thinking and telling her that I would not have a problem with how I parent him because I would simply treat him and raise him as we did Kirra. I remember being so sure and so confident in my answers to her that I never saw this aspect as a problem. Now that I am here and having to face this what should be easy transition, I am finding myself feeling sad that he's not laying right next to us and he's out of my sight. I feel guilty in some respects too. I feel like its not fair to him to be left alone because he was left alone (meaning without his family) all those nights in the NICU. So what I am doing now with these feelings is looking back at those therapy sessions and what the therapist said to me and realizing that I can't change the past and that I want to do the right thing and give Kai exactly what we gave Kirra. Kai is an extremely strong boy and I know he can handle anything that comes his way, hopefully I can gain some of that strength and from him to ultimately help him as well as Kirra.