Progress
Yesterday Caleb slept in his room, in his crib for the first time ever and he did really great. Minimal crying. He woke up at 3:45 am and joined us in our room, but that's great for a first night. There's no manual for how to do things "right" when it comes to kids (adopted or bio). It's been almost 2 months since we got him, he's adjusting great, getting taller, and needs to get out of the pack and play, and our room. So, I just decided to push a bit and see what happens. And so far it's working. I had already started working with him to fall asleep on his own in our room and to stay in the pack and play all night long. So, really it's been a gradual process.
Leaving him with other people is a whole different story. We have been taking turns staying with him in the church nursery each week to get him used to it. He's been comfortable playing in there and leaving me to walk around and play. So, this past Sunday, I decided to leave for about 3 minutes. It didn't go so well. He screamed while I was gone and then sobbed for 10 minutes after I came back. It's such a loud busy environment so maybe it was a bad choice for a first try at this. But we'll try again another day!
We did have better luck today at speech therapy. He really likes Ms. K and she has lots of cool toys. He sees her twice a week and she gives him lollipops. So, today we worked on me leaving the room and he did pretty well, compared to Sunday. He cried a bit and kept leaving the room to find me but he spent about 10 of the 30 minutes in the therapy room without me.
Caleb likes to be close to us at all times, which of course makes sense. So, working on independence and trust is a big deal and it will take a long time. The balance of pushing a bit and not pushing too much is a hard one. I also have no idea how much he comprehends of what we say, so explaining that we'll be back may not be very comforting to him.
In general he's a happy little guy and we're falling more in love each day.
Leaving him with other people is a whole different story. We have been taking turns staying with him in the church nursery each week to get him used to it. He's been comfortable playing in there and leaving me to walk around and play. So, this past Sunday, I decided to leave for about 3 minutes. It didn't go so well. He screamed while I was gone and then sobbed for 10 minutes after I came back. It's such a loud busy environment so maybe it was a bad choice for a first try at this. But we'll try again another day!
We did have better luck today at speech therapy. He really likes Ms. K and she has lots of cool toys. He sees her twice a week and she gives him lollipops. So, today we worked on me leaving the room and he did pretty well, compared to Sunday. He cried a bit and kept leaving the room to find me but he spent about 10 of the 30 minutes in the therapy room without me.
Caleb likes to be close to us at all times, which of course makes sense. So, working on independence and trust is a big deal and it will take a long time. The balance of pushing a bit and not pushing too much is a hard one. I also have no idea how much he comprehends of what we say, so explaining that we'll be back may not be very comforting to him.
In general he's a happy little guy and we're falling more in love each day.
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