Cry It Out

Let me just say that I cannot write anything about this last week without being kind of judgemental about the Cry It Out method of teaching your kid to sleep. I HATE IT. But we did try it. Friday night we were at our wits end with crazy kooklamlooka Ed Jr. and partying at 10:30 at night after being asleep for 2 hours.

It could have been daylight savings time, it could have been Cissie's absence, it could have been the new tooth (#3 on the bottom), but sleeping for little man this week sucked. It seemed like all of the good work we had done, and the progress that we had made was gone out the window.

Normal scenario. Let me just say that there is no such thing as normal anymore, but this is what was pretty predictable. 1.5 hour morning nap, 1.5 hour afternoon nap, bed at 8ish and asleep until 11 - 12 at which time he was moved to our bed for the remainder of the night and gets up between 7 - 8 AM. Not too bad. Plus it seemed like he was sleeping longer and longer in his crib at night and eventually, he would just sleep in there all night. Not SO!

It all started last Friday night while his Nanna was babysitting. He woke up around 9:30 and decided to stay up and watch TV with his nanna until 11 when his parents got home and tried for an hour to put him back to bed. He thought that it was such a fun schedule, he would keep it up for the rest of the week, and naps, FORGET ABOUT IT. 20 minutes - 40 minutes, that is good enough. UG it was so frustrating. I started online research and picked up a book that I should have tossed in the garbage 10 months ago. Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child. The Dr. who wrote it is a pretentious crapbag. So Saturday night, we let him cry for 30 minutes. It was just so wrong. Wrong for him, wrong for us. Plus it didn't help his sleep. Ed still had to go up there and put him to sleep.

The best advice I have ever gotten about being a parent is find people with similar values and listen to their advice, drown out the rest. That is what I am doing. I am returning to The No Cry Sleep Solution. I am going to know that as Ed Jr.'s mom, that I am the expert on him. I also am going to chill out, ride this wave, and keep working on helping him sleep longer and better, not chicken out and cry it out for promises of quick solutions.