The last few months, something weird has happened. My once-well-sleeping baby stopped sleeping. Cooper goes down around 6:30-7 and used to sleep til midnight, then woke to eat. After a while, she even dropped the midnight feeding and would want to eat sometime in the middle of the night. I thought I had it pretty good. And I did!
Until she started teething/rolling over/standing up. Then it became a waking-up-every-two-hours-all-night-long kind of thing. A driving-mommy-crazy kind of thing. A dark-circles-under-the-eyes kind of thing. I kept trying to analyze it: grown spurt? Teething? Ear infection? Poop? I didn’t find any answers…or any sleep.
This week I had a few derby events, which meant that I was gone after bedtime. And on those few nights, Rob did something that got Cooper sleeping through the night: he let her cry.
Now, I don’t know where you stand in terms of the baby-raising camps. There are two main parties at play: the baby-training and the attachment parenting. A lot of space in-between of course, but more often than not, people are drawn toward one position or the other. Before I had kids, I was all “Stop babying those babies! They just need to cry.” When I was pregnant, I started reading about babies, since I knew virtually nothing about them and hadn’t held an actual baby in, like, years. All of the sudden, attachment parenting really started to click with me. (I’ve written about it here and here and here in case you want a bit more.)
But like all things parenting, we tend to take what works or clicks with us and then toss out what doesn’t. I met for coffee with an old high school friend this weekend and she said that before having her first baby (who is Cooper’s age), she and her husband decided on this parenting principle: no absolutes. I love that! You can read all you want and may find that actual parenting smacks you in the face with how it differs. Or each child you have may require something new and different. Giving yourself the freedom to adapt is a great thing.
So adapting we are. Just a bit. I still am not comfortable with crying it out as a general rule. For me, it goes against those natural mother urges I have. I think those urges are important. Though many people do it and argue for it (which is fine), it’s also a very western and fairly new idea. Until there were homes with separate rooms and the idea that babies needed to be on our schedules, there WAS no crying it out. But in this current mode of life, there is no reason for Cooper to be waking so much. And I’m beginning to sort of get to the end of my rope between my current baby and the one growing.
The night Rob let her cry was the first night she slept all night. Let me say that again: SHE SLEPT ALL NIGHT.
I woke up at 6:45 without a baby beside me and (of course) sat bolt upright and thought, “She must be dead.” (I’m not the only one who does that, right?) The next night I was gone again and she cried again and Rob let her cry for a bit and she went back to sleep. She woke a bit in the night and cried for like five minutes, then fell back asleep. Another full night for me. I am a new woman. Or, just a woman, not a beast.
We are still figuring out what this looks like. Of course as I’m finishing this post, Cooper started crying. I am literally itching to run in there. But then I remember how she’s been waking 3-4 times between 7pm and midnight and I remind myself: we need to get over this hump. But it is. so. hard.
Where are you on the parenting spectrum? Are you a die-hard baby trainer? Or a hard-core attachment parenting? Or did you decide no absolutes for your family? What things surprised you as you dove into this whole adventure? No judgment, even if we differ!
Oh, and just so you and I can both feel better: Cooper stopped crying. My skin can stop tingling and itching now.
I was the one who rushed in to comfort every squeak. Pedro was the one who informed me that crying is good for lung development. When Laura (who is now married) was 9 months old and I hadn’t slept for more than two hours at a time in years, Pedro said, “Enough of this. Next time she cries, I’m going in.” She cried. He went in, handed her her sippy cup of water and walked out. She cried. He stayed put. I ground my teeth. It seemed like she cried forever, but she didn’t. A week later, she was sleeping 8 hours a night. I think sometimes I may have been waking her up when she was actually just vocalizing in her sleep. Our second one, we had her on a schedule and she slept through the night (8 hours) at three weeks old. Whenever we had a change (teeth, vacation, growth spurts), we always had a night or two of adjustments. I think ‘No absolutes’ is a great motto–but I lean more towards the power of scheduling (and putting babies on a schedule and teaching them not to cry at a very young age is not really new to modern western thinking…I’ve read that Native American’s taught their babies not to cry by covering their mouths–giving away one’s position could be a life or death situation and called for drastic measures–I think what’s important is what works for each family and that family’s parenting style, family dynamics and situation).
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That is so interesting about Native Americans! Shows I don’t know everything from my reading. I think in most of the research I’ve done, cultures that are non-western or before sometime in the 1880s didn’t have anything like the training we have now, if that makes sense. There is a book I really want to read and now can’t remember the name about parenting in different cultures. Now I’m going to go look it up.
It’s so hard!! We (Jason and I) tend to fall towards the baby-training side, but it breaks my heart to hear Madi cry. Even when it’s just the less-than-a-minute when I first put her down for a nap or bedtime. It always makes me want to run back in there. (So I just make Jason put her down so I don’t have to see her face, haha) However, she doesn’t need me – she wants me. That’s a big difference to me. I love holding her sometimes – but not all the time. And it’s healthier for both of us this way because if I was always holding her, then I wouldn’t be able to get rest or leave for an evening and that would make me resent her. It’s hard, but it wil be a relief when she can put herself to sleep and I read somewhere that a little crying helps them to sleep better. As long as her needs have been met, then she will be okay. Give yourself grace and know that you are the best mom possible for her. Thinking and praying for you friend.
I need sleep. Plain and simple. So one of my first questions for the pediatrician was “when can we let her cry?” I’m not kidding. This was in the hospital when she was a day old. When he told us (with our first) that the baby is in charge until six months, I listened….because he said at six months get yourself a bottle of wine and earplugs and put her to sleep on her own. Well, I skipped the wine and earplugs (though I had the wine on standby) and just busied myself with the dishes. By the time I was done, she was done too. We never looked back and she never did either! We never even had to do the whole “cry it out” thing with her little bro, and I think that had a little to do with my willingness to let him fuss a little longer before I dashed into his room.
All that to say, it worked for us! But I know how different every child (and parent) is!
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If it makes you feel less crazy, my mom checked on us in the middle of the night until we were out of middle school. When we were really small, she would count three full breaths before she would leave our room. (Granted, upon further reflection, that’s a little OCD…) You’re not crazy to think “the baby died” first thing upon waking after a full night’s sleep. 🙂
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aaaahhhhh! It never ends!
I know this struggle, Kirsten! My husband has had to physically restrain me at times to keep me from rushing to my baby’s side. It is so hard on a mama heart. But I too need my sleep. Since my 8 month old is my 4th baby, I have seen 4 different responses to the whole sleep issue. Part of it is figuring out what your baby truly needs. With Ainsley, she might wake up or make noises 45 minutes after going to sleep, but she will fall back to sleep. But if she does wake up in the middle of the night, it is because she needs something.
I have learned to trust my husband’s judgment on these things, because he is much less emotional about it all! 🙂
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Husbands are totally helpful. It’s really a challenge, the whole sleeping thing. Each of my kids has been different, so finding what works definitely is a challenge. I think that’s one reason I’m not totally gung-ho on the baby-training: it seems to want to have all children treated the same way. But I guess that would maybe be the extreme by-the-book baby training?
We did the cry it out too and I hated every minute of it. It was among one of the sleep methods we had read about in the far too many parenting books we had. But, in the end, it was our pediatrician who said that was the best method.
It gets better. Good luck and stay strong,
Renee (from the SITS Tribe Challenge)
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Thanks for the encouragement! It’s really hard. I’m only okay with it to a certain degree and at a certain age, but it’s definitely worked this time around!
I had the biggest need for CIO for naps. Going to bed has always been easy for Gideon, but naps were what required the stomach-wrenching waiting game. He cried hysterically if I tried to comfort him, so I had to go all-out. I think that I would have done it differently if I had to do it over, and I would have started to condition him to specific nap times when he was younger than 6 months (when we started, pretty darn late).
G now wakes up at least twice a night most nights. I’m okay with him waking up 2 – 4 hours after he goes to bed, it seems like he feels he’s missed a feeding during the day or something (but he also eats every 2 hours, even now at 10.5 months). But, it gets frustrating to get up later. I think that the more he is allowed to be held and eat, the more stimulated his body is by food (and the human touch). When I turn off the monitor, I think we both sleep better, since his little night frustrations aren’t heard. His long, sustained cries are, so I’ve liked this method, though I still feel uneasy at times, and I do check for dried tear streaks, just to ensure he didn’t sob away the night, outside of my hearing. Sometimes, I also get up after a few minutes, but go to the bathroom and get water. About 20% of the time, he’ll be quiet when I’m done.
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