Humbled

I am a planner. It's my nature. I may try to convince myself that I've given up my over-planning tendencies but in reality, I need routine in order to feel like I'm functioning properly. Having a baby throws plans and routines into chaos, well, at least my baby. He doesn't go by my schedule, my routine, he goes by his own, and he changes it quite often just to make sure I'm paying attention. But what I've come to realize, yet again, is that it's not Matthew trying to get my attention, it's God. My world is not in MY hands, it's in His. The most recent eye opening event came last week.

In July, Matthew had finally learned how to soothe himself to sleep and started sleeping thru the night. But then, we went on a week long vacation in August and all of that went out the window. It was fine on vacation for his sleep to be interrupted, for his schedule to be thrown off, after all it was vacation and what else were we going to do. Since then, his nighttime sleeping habits have gotten so much worse. To the point that he was waking up every hour after we put him to bed for about 4 hours, then would sleep a couple of hours and then want another bottle. I was fine getting up with him ONCE or TWICE a night for a bottle, but getting up every hour was getting exhausting. We were at our wits end. I dreaded the nights. I cried when he cried. My husband started reading Dr. Ferber's book on how to get Matthew to learn to soothe himself, to go to bed without a big ordeal, to sleep better thru the night. Just as we were getting ready to implement our newest information (I had read other books on the subject), God reminded us who was in charge.

For 4 nights now, Matthew has slept nearly all night long. When he wakes, he soothes himself back to sleep. I'm in awe and I'm humbled. It had nothing to do with us or anything we did or didn't do. We hadn't changed anything yet. Our little boy did it on his own. I have no doubt it was all God's doing. Not that all of the awful nights before that were God's doing too, but He saw that I was at my breaking point and without me asking, He fixed it. He was there the whole time, wanting me to come to Him for help, but instead I got frustrated, read stuff, vented, used common sense and nothing worked. It's comforting to know that He is there for me, even when I don't ask. He knew my heart and I am humbled and grateful.

I'm not saying my little angel is a perfect sleeper now. We have learned some things to use to help him to go to sleep at night and my husband is finally able to put Matthew to bed without my help. What I am saying tho is that it is night and day compared to how things were just a week ago and I have no doubt God stepped in to help and to help me realize that it isn't by my doing, it's by His and that I need to come to Him more often for things I need help with, not just prayer for others.