Meyer turned seven months on Sunday and, while he is developing perfectly in every other way, he still is not sleeping through the night – which is hard, to say the least. Drew and I awake most mornings not happy and refreshed but like parental zombies and need coffee injected directly into our veins to perk up enough to get ready for the day. Drew is usually up twice with Meyer (around 12:30 a.m. and 3:00 for a couple of feedings) before I wake up for the early Meyer shift somewhere between 4:30 and 5:30.
We’ve spoken to his pediatrician who advised us at his six-month appointment that he should be able to sleep through the night, without a feeding, and that we should start to let him ‘cry it out.’
Now, ever since Meyer was born, I’ve made it my personal mission to never make him cry let alone ignore it when he does. My parenting style comes down pretty far on the attachment side of things because I truly believe that if he is crying it is for a reason. I know some people say that sometimes babies just cry, and maybe some babies do, but not Meyer – he usually has good reason for crying, even if he just wants attention.
I fell like he is a baby, he has no idea what is going on and when he is needy, for whatever reason, it is our job as his caretakers to fix that for him. Now, this is not an easy mandate when all I want is just some time alone with Drew or some time for myself and he starts to fuss, but what can I do? It’s all part of being a parent, I think, that you give a huge part of your life over to this adorable little being for awhile.
So, when the doctor recommended to start letting him cry it out I was immediately skeptical. I know that the theory is that if you leave him alone to figure out how to settle himself that he will learn and then can go to sleep easier in the future. Well, that’s the theory.
We started trying to let him cry himself to sleep when we were staying with Nancy during ‘The Great Bed Bug Infestation 2006.’ He was in his pack and play screaming his head off while I was curled up in the bed crying and crying, myself. It would never stop until I patted him and stroked his head and then he would do that residual sobbing thing because he had been so upset. Broke my heart but I thought that maybe we were getting somewhere.
However, once we got home, it was clear his sleeping pattern had not changed and we were still up several times a night with Meyer. Now, granted, this gives me a good portion of time to indulge in my #1 guilty pleasure: watching home shopping channels (I don’t buy, just morbidly fascinated), but still, it makes for very drowsy mornings. So, we continued. We started a bed time routine (bath, bottle, book, bed), put him to bed while he was drowsy, not asleep, and then snuck out the room and closed the door.
Every time Meyer would scream and scream until Drew or I broke down and picked him up and rocked him back to sleep. One, or both of us, feeling guilty that we had let him cry so hard for so long. Thank goodness their memory banks are so short at this age!
Well, the point to all this, is last night was the final straw. We did our routine, put him to bed, and left the room. He began to cry, after five minutes I went in and patted his back. After another 10 Drew did the same. After another 10 I went in and he almost went to sleep but started screaming as soon as I left. Five more minutes and Drew went in to pick him up.
And that’s when we decided: NO MORE CRY IT OUT.
Drew put it best when he said, “If it is choice between loving him and not sleeping or not loving him and forcing him to sleep, I’d choose the former.” I agreed, so we decided to stop all this and let Meyer develop as he will. We will still stick to the routine and try to reinforce sleep cues to him, but we just can’t let him scream any more.
This is not to say that those who use cry it out don’t love their children – I’m sure they do. And, who knows, we might be doing more harm than good in that Meyer will have self-control issues down the road, be a rotten toddler and an alcoholic by the time he’s 16.
I don’t know. But I do know that my Mommy intuition hates to hear him cry and that it rends my heart to pieces. His cries are filled with panic and fear and, just as I have from the day he was born, I’m going to do whatever I can to stop those cries when they happen – not cause them.
Sorry, Dr. England. No cry is no more, for us.
