It’s 1:17 a.m.
As I rock in the nursery, baby in my lap, his downy head and soft, ivory cheeks reflect a bluish-white from the night-light. I fantasize about reading a fashion magazine, eating a bowl of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream or giggling my way through DVR’d new episodes of “Glee,” “Modern Family” and “The Office” with a glass of wine.
Then his tiny hand, resting on my chest with fingers softly outstretched, twitches and I think about how my days (or nights) in this chair are numbered. I push thoughts of me-time away and glance at two large plastic storage containers of outgrown baby clothes and want to cry.
***
Cry it out. The No-Cry Sleep Solution. The Weissbluth method. Aware Parenting’s “crying-in-arms” strategy. There are so many different ways to train your baby to go to sleep.
The hardest part? Finding out there is no “right” or “best” one.
It seems that no matter how different, most operate under similar principles: self-soothing, sleeping without sucking, sleeping alone.
I’m really opposed to CIO. I can’t fully explain why, and I don’t want to demonize people who do it or paint myself as some sort of saint for not doing it. The bottom line, for sleep training or otherwise, is that if you are motivated by love, not selfishness or indifference, you are doing the right thing for your family.
Doctor’s orders: Cry it out
My husband and I took Josiah, at just shy of 7 months, to the pediatrician to get help for his reflux. It’s gotten better as he has gotten older, but I had come to think it was contributing to his night-waking. He rarely sleeps for more than a sleep cycle at a time (50 minutes).
The doctor prescribed an antacid but said the real problem was that we were putting him to bed already asleep and told us our only option was to let him cry it out. He basically said it was our one and only option and even if he cried for two-plus hours to just let him go, don’t touch him or go see him, nothing. My husband asked what if he cried so hard he made a poopy diaper, and the doc reluctantly said we could change it. Geez, what a softy.
I told him flat out, nope, not gonna do cry-it-out, and the lecture ensued. I looked at the floor, lips pursed, occasionally shaking my head as I held my sweet angel. I never want him to feel abandoned when he can’t understand what’s happening. Side note: I would totally use the doc’s advice on a 2- or 3-year-old. Just not a baby.
Anyway, the experience pretty much ruined my day. I asked my husband if we could please try a gentler method first, and if that doesn’t work, maybe implement CIO in stages. He agreed.
He also asked me to call my mom and ask what she used to do with me. Full of dread, I called my mom and we talked for a while, and thankfully her reaction to the doc’s advice mirrored mine: NO! I dreaded the call because I could see her saying, “Oh yeah, we let you cry for hours! And look, you turned out fine!” Very glad that didn’t happen.
So it’s been a couple of weeks. So far we’ve been doing Elizabeth Pantley’s “No-Cry Sleep Solution.” I think it’s helping build some good habits, like falling asleep without nursing and setting him down drowsy and shushing him back to sleep. No results yet though. And putting an awake baby to bed, even 95 percent sleepy, is really difficult, by the way.
A few nights ago I stumbled across a method that’s part of something called “Aware Parenting”. Basically, the baby cries it out while you are holding him, with the idea that 1) it’s the perceived abandonment of CIO that’s harmful, not the crying itself, and 2) crying is necessary for relieving pent-up stress from being shushed or given the breast/pacifier during the day to stop crying (i.e. crying achieves homeostasis).
The science of crying-in-arms is really intriguing to me, but I’m not sold on the emotional/psychological aspect as far as prolonged crying. I tried this out the night I read about it, and it was agony having him cry in my arms. I re-read the website the next day and tried again, and as he snuffled and as his eyelids got heavier and heavier, I really thought I was going to have success, until he launched into a fresh wave of tears. (I think teething is sabotaging any efforts right now.)
Some say American culture puts too much emphasis on sleeping through the night and crib sleeping. As far as STTN, I look at it this way: I’m an adult. I wake late at night, hungry, thirsty, hot, cold. Why should we expect more out of babies?? Waking once or twice a night, no big deal. Every hour, that’s different.
***
I’m not some kind of martyr. I know me-time is important, not indulgent. But no matter how many nights I rock only to have him awaken the moment I set him down, then I give up and take him into the guest bed with me so I can rest, I know babyhood won’t last forever.
“It won’t last forever” is the sad other side of the coin to “This too shall pass.”
Well, I’m hungry (surprised?). I’m too superstitious to disclose how long Josiah has been asleep (long enough to write this post 🙂 Update: Nearly two hours had passed when he woke up), but I am going to take it as a good sign. There’s a bowl of ice cream with my name on it.
Josiah, 5 days old
second-shift mom 