I hate cry it out. You know, the forced method of getting your child to self-soothe.
Let me reiterate: I hate cry it out.
The thought of it makes me cringe. When Josie was younger, and I was running really low on sleep and, as a consequence, patience ... we tried. I couldn't do it. I made my husband do it and then I still couldn't handle it.
Like a lot of other parents, I'm of the mindset that babies cry for a reason, the most common being they're hungry, tired or have a soiled diaper. We all know babies cry for more reasons than those, though, and some kids just like to snuggle. Not getting that snuggle time is reason enough, still, for my 2-year-old to cry if I try to get her into her bed before she's ready
I have the snugglers who tend to end up in my bed night after night. I love bedsharing, but not nearly as much now as I used to. Charlotte, at 15 months, is the same size now as Josie was at her 2-year well visit. The child is a giant compared to her big sister; I'll likely be buying them the same size clothes by Christmas.
Having Gigantor and the Bean in a double bed with two adults just isn't working anymore. It hasn't been working. I sleep, but don't rest. My husband was spending a majority of the night hanging onto the edge of the bed, praying he didn't fall out. I'm sure you're thinking, "Why don't they just buy a bigger bed?" Not feasible. We had trouble fitting the box springs for the double up our stairs and in the process a piece of the trim work was torn off the wall — and still hasn't been fixed. A bigger bed would mean losing our living room because that's about the only place we'd be able to get a queen or king size bed to fit.
Or maybe your thought process went something like this: "Fools! Kick the kids out and get some sleep!"
Didn't I mention I hate cry it out? I passionately dislike it.
But not nearly as much as I hate getting an elbow blast to the eye I'm already legally blind in from a childhood accident. When I don't sleep enough or get enough rest, my eye throbs and hurts to touch, so imagine the unseen force of an elbow flying into your face and the pain that tore through my face.
Enough was enough and the next night I told Charlie she was going to bed in her bed and I was done rocking her to sleep. And it was hard. It was difficult to stop breastfeeding her when we realized we were done, but this was a different kind of hard. This was losing hours of snuggle time. This was admitting my baby needed as good a night's sleep as I needed, and she wasn't getting it in bed with us.
Admitting my best decision really wasn't working anymore and swallowing my mommy pride was hard, and so was dealing with a crying baby the next night. However, it would have been many times worse if the decision had been made because she had hit me with enough force and dislodged the intraocular lens implant, which I've been told would take surgery to correct if it does move out of place naturally or otherwise. I'm thankful that did not happen.
The first night, a Friday, it took nearly an hour of screaming, crying and laying her down before she gave up. She was overtired on top of starting a new routine. Mommy fail. It likely would have gone smoother if she was in bed an hour sooner. She woke up and was in our bed at some point between 3 and 5 a.m. Middle-of-the-night clock watching becomes a bit hazy after almost three years of not sleeping.
Regardless of her ending up in our bed, I'm proud of myself for not losing my patience, throwing my hands up in the air and making Boy Wonder take over. I was almost in tears myself, but back rubbing and leg massaging and shushing finally won out.
The next night, she cried and whimpered and was laid down multiple times, but not nearly as many as the night before. Thirty-ish minutes and my sweet baby was fast asleep ... and for the first time in almost her entire life, she slept ALL NIGHT. Score is now Charlie- a bajillion; Mommy- 1.
By Sunday night, she was down to fussing for 10 or so minutes, but laying down to do it, and all she needed was me to stand next to the crib caressing her back and occasionally shushing her. Within 15 minutes I was back downstairs.
My kids love to sleep. Josie loves to sleep in her bed at the beginning of the night and at some point sneaks into mine to snuggle. Charlotte is falling in love with her crib. Finally.
I'd be lying if I said I don't miss how full my bed was a couple weeks ago, but it's nice to be able to go to bed at a normal time because I want to, not because we'll be woken up a few hours later to grab the toddler wanna be from her jail.
Now I just need to sleep train myself so I actually sleep instead of teetering on the edge of consciousness waiting for those cries in the night.
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