Crying It Out

Cora isn’t much of a sleeper. She averages about 12 hours of sleep per day, and she racks up the most zzz’s during the nighttime. She doesn’t like to nap, and if she does doze off during the daytime hours, it’s usually for a 30 minute power nap. And the true kicker is that she will sleep in her crib at night, but refuses to sleep alone during the day. Despite her sleep deprivation, she’s a very pleasant and happy child. But I’ve marveled at other parents who seem to schedule *their* lives during their children’s naptimes. We’re usually up and at ‘em by 5:30 a.m. and don’t stop until around 10:30 p.m. Cora has a strict 8 p.m. bedtime. The other hours in the day are hers for the taking.

Getting Cora to sleep at night has been very tricky too. Once she’s down, she usually doesn’t wake more than once during the night. The pediatrician says she should be able to sleep 11 hours without waking, but that almost never happens. Getting her to sleep has proven to be the source of much debate and turmoil for us. We started a “bedtime routine” when she was about 3 months old—our version of the 5 S’s: soap (warm bath), swaddle, story, snack (nursing), and then the sack (crib). I was guilty of using the "snack" part to get her to sleep and then putting her in the crib and quietly exiting the room in hopes of not being detected. It worked for a while…until it didn’t and then I realized why every parenting book on the planet says “don’t nurse your baby to sleep”. Because when it doesn’t work, you’ve got nothing except a very unhappy baby on your hands and a bad habit to break.

The past few weeks, we’ve gone back and forth on the best way to get Cora to sleep. We tried EVERYTHING to no avail. More out of defeat than anything else, we began letting her cry it out. During the beginning, I think we all cried ourselves to sleep. It goes against everything I thought I believed in. Fortunately, Daniel and I are a pretty darn good team. When one of us is weak, the other seems to muster the necessary strength to pull us through.  I usually left him in charge of listening to her and checking in on her every little bit, and I tried to find a place in the house where I couldn’t hear her screaming and could partake in some self-loathing. I’m not going to lie, the beginning was horrible. But I realized we had to stick with the plan. Pretty soon she was going to be able to pull herself up in the crib and stand screaming. She, too, would soon have words to scream.  We needed to get this under control quickly.

After a few days, she has begun to go to sleep without much of a fight. She’ll frequently wake up in the night and put herself back to sleep. The results are in and crying it out has worked for us.

This little lesson has taught me so much about being a parent. First, parenting isn’t always easy no matter how effortless some people make it look. Also, what worked yesterday, may not work today. Additionally, theories are useless until you’ve had an opportunity to test them. And perhaps most importantly, doing what is best is sometimes unpleasant, but it needs to be done no matter how difficult it may be.  Then you go and put her in a frog outfit and sunglasses and suddenly it's all worth it.

Until next time, you’ll find us all resting a little easier.