Monday, October 16, 2006

I am now officially 31 damn years old! I celebrated by baking bread, buying pumpkins, talking to Bill, and pulling my hair out over a daughter who just won't sleep through the night.

Yeah. So the last few weeks we have been working on getting her sleep on her own. Sort of. I was rubbing her back and shushing until i could sneak out of the room. Finally, I was just deperate. So I let her cry. This was admittedly against my better judgement. But you know what? It worked. Of course you know, it probably worked for you! And once I saw it working I immediately gave up feeling bad or like I was a less "attached" mama. So for a week she slept through, basically, or fell back asleep on her own in a minute or two. But now, we're back to howling in the night. And I have no clue what to do! I can bring her into bed with me, but Bill is home soon and there's just not room for the three of us and I LIKE having just us in the bed a whole whole lot. (even more than I like her with us, which I adore.) So now what? Please weigh in! I don't care if you did cry it out or co-slept, I just want to know what worked for you. Because last night's scenario (12:30 cry and rub back, by 12:45 no more crying, 1:30 inconsolable crying, into bed with me, by 1:50 standing next to my head, banging the headboard and screaming at the dog, by 1:55 crying after sharp words from me threatening return to crib, by 2:05 snoozing cuddled up to me, at 7:05 awake an hour later than needed) did not work.


In other news, this is Eva's new favorite animal. She is a champion Alpaca caller. she squacks and they come trotting over. God bless us if she asks for one for Christmas.

And also, there is snow all over the mountains behind my house.

And also also, I made and maintained a damn fine wood stove fire this weekend: the furnace did not come on once!

4 Comments:

Blogger Martha said...

Did you let her cry in the middle of the night too? or just at bed time? And thank god I have only occasional neighbors on her side of the house!

12:01 PM  
Blogger Christa said...

I let Drew cry it out...sometimes I even turned off the monitor. In the words of my mother (which I hated at the time, but realize how important they are): "This too shall pass"

12:24 PM  
Blogger Vicky said...

We let Becca cry it out. She never seemed to be comforted by back rubbing. She still will cry to go to sleep. She doesn't cry long anymore. It seemed like she was going to cry herself to sleep no matter what we did. I can't wait till she outgrows this totally.

8:47 AM  
Blogger lagiulia said...

Crying it out is brutal at first. At least it was for us. I remember in the beginning, they cried for like 1.5 hours in the middle of the night for 2 or 3 nights. It was pure torture. And going in to rub their backs or reassure them only made them scream louder and longer! I threw tantrums (kicking and screaming into a pillow) on the bed waiting for them to stop. I felt soooo bad about doing it but knew we couldn't go back to waking up several times each night and therefore had to see it through. It worked probably after about a week. They've been good sleepers ever since. The only problem occurs when one is sick or something and we get up with them, and then we have to sort of retrain them again after that. But the retraining has not been as severe as the initial training. Good luck, whatever you decide. Your degree of desperation will probably make a decision for you.

3:44 PM  

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