Cry it out. What are your thoughts on this (assuming you have any)? The baby of course, not me. Although occasionally I have been known to cry it out too. :)
Up until recently I have been adamantly against letting G cry for any length of time. My natural instincts led me to inadvertently subscribe to the "attachment parenting" method of parenting. I say "inadvertently" because prior to having him I had not read up on attachment parenting or any other style of parenting for that matter. I wasn't a baby whisperer or a happiest baby on the block-er. I was just me. A fairly laid back, sensitive, sometimes planner, who was ok with winging it. My past experience with babies had taught me that "planning" was futile. The baby, to a large extent, is in charge. Early on you can attempt to direct and guide their day, but if they decide 2:00am is a perfect play time there's not a whole lot you can do to convince them otherwise.
After G was born my own parenting style began to take form. Lots of holding, carrying in various carriers (two Moby wraps, a Bjorn and a Beco), exclusively breast feeding (and I do mean exclusively, this kid won't take a bottle to save his life), co-sleeping/family bed (more for my sanity than for his benefit) and never letting him cry if it was in my control. I'll admit sometimes he was left to cry when I had to run to the bathroom or on a long drive over a twisty mountain road where there was nowhere to pull over, but you better believe there was no other choice and the mommy guilt hit hard.
Fast forward to present day. As I have already mentioned, G isn't exactly a good sleeper which in turn has turned me into a non-sleeper. As is typical with babies, just when I think one thing works/does the trick he switches it up and I have to work to find the new thing that will help him sleep. For a long long time the only two ways for him to fall asleep were nursing and his swing. Then one day it was like a switch was flipped and that just wasn't doing it anymore. Suddenly I had to stand by his crib and vigorously pat his stomach while repeating "shh shh shh" over and over. Then there was this blissful week where I could put him in his crib, walk away and he would fall to sleep on his own. Pure magic.
Just to keep things new and fresh, my little monster has decided to switch things up again. Last night we went through the whole routine, pajamas, books, nursing, rocking, bed. It worked. Then an hour later he was up. No amount of patting or shooshing helped. Nursed again just to calm him down and back to bed. This happened over and over until midnight when he finally gave up... for four hours, then he did it some more. It's nights like this that I find myself faced with the decision of letting him cry it out. I'm so tired. So desperate for him to sleep. What do you do when none of your "tricks" are working? Do you really just leave your baby to sob in his crib? If you do, how do you not cry it out yourself? How long do you let him cry? What do you do if you have a baby that just doesn't stop crying?
Okay... I have what is probably a very common cry-it-out experience. When Scarlett was 4-5 months old, I decided no more bottle to sleep. Being a nanny, I just couldn't devote the constant time making sure she ate just enough and was completely asleep before I put her down. Seth was not exactly on board, so I had to do it while he was gone.
ReplyDeleteI created a routine, which it sounds like you've done, and put her in her crib fully awake. Turned on the mobile (which had lights and music... and a remote and was totally awesome!) and left the room. She cried for 43 minutes. I did the same the next night, and it was 17 minutes. By night 3, it was three minutes and from then on it was life changing. I had to detach myself emotionally which just sounds heartless, but in the long run, I knew it would be best for her... to learn self comfort, to sleep longer and for her teeth too, really- because then she wasn't having milk on her teeth all night.
I'm not sure that Grant will go for this. He sounds a slight bit stubborn in the sleep department? But for your own long term mental health, you may want to give it a try.
And no joke about that mobile! It provided enough of a distraction and if it shut off, I could poke my hand in with the remote and turn it back on.
I'm also going to refer you to a brand new blog started by three moms. They are looking for questions just like this! http://www.poopwhisperer.com/