Wednesday’s Worries (# 2)

I hate the cry-it-out method!

We took Limon Junior to the doctor for his 15 month check-up visit, and one of the things we discussed with the doctor was the difficulty getting Junior to bed at night. She said that we needed to make sure we have a consistent nightly routine, and that we need to just leave him in his bed. She called this the cry-it-out method.

After some googling*, the cry-it-out method means that you basically just leave your kid to sit alone and cry until they pass out. I hate that SO MUCH.

My family has a pretty consistent daily routine. I also have figured out a fairly strict sleeping schedule that Junior sticks to rigorously. I say that meaning, he gets sleepy at bedtime. That doesn’t mean that he goes to sleep at bedtime! There is a nightly struggle. We say goodnight to Daddy, we get comfy, we put on our rain sounds, and I sing Junior to sleep. Sometimes, I am singing for over an hour. This isn’t working for me.

Junior increasingly wakes up during the night and wants to be held and sung back to sleep. He’s now over 20 pounds, though! I had to buy a rocking chair, because carrying him around the bedroom while I sung was killing my back. I don’t spend the night in bed with my husband anymore, because I am trying to get the baby back to sleep or have fallen asleep in my stupidly comfortable new rocking chair. This isn’t working for me!

My husband has started getting upset with Junior when he wakes up during the night, because it takes me from his side and he knows that I might not be coming back during the night at all. This is not working for us.

I broke down and bought some ear plugs. I got the cheapest ones possible, the squishy ones you get in a pack of like 50 for I think maybe three or four dollars. I haven’t had the courage to use them until today.

My husband works ten to twelve hours a day, and I stay home working my research job and taking care of Junior and the house. I like it because I get to control my environment consistently and my husband gets a comfortable place to lay his head and good food to eat. However, my husband being gone and me being responsible for so much at one time often makes it impossible to give Junior the attention he wants particularly at naptime. I don’t have time to sing to him multiple hours during the middle of the day.

Today, I am working on a particularly grueling research project. Junior has been recovering from his vaccines** that he got at his doctor visit, and has had a fever for a day or so. Fevers always make him extra fussy. I thought maybe we would be in the clear for me to be able to finish my project since he hasn’t had a fever today. I was incorrect. He has been extra fussy today, probably due to the lack of sleep he has had the last few days that he has had a fever. I need him to sleep. I don’t have time to sing him to sleep.

I brought out the ear plugs. I stuffed them in my ears, and I covered them with my hair so Junior wouldn’t see them. I went and made him a bottle, and put on some monotonal lullaby tunes for babies. I put him in his play area with some pillows and a couple soft blankets and plushies. I gave him a sweet smile and a hug and kissed him on the head. Then, I turned away to work on my research project on my computer.

I could still hear Junior crying, so I put my over-the-ear headphones on and some soft jazz.

I set a timer for five minutes to check on him, and when the timer went off he was already asleep. Five minutes. Not an hour. Not an hour and a half. Five minutes.

I hate the cry-it-out method. It makes me feel like I am doing a terrible job at being a mother. It goes against everything that I am supposed to be. I am supposed to stop him crying. I am supposed to comfort and hold and warm him. But it seems like the cry-it-out method works. At least, it worked this one time.

He is still asleep. I was able to finish my project and write this entire post in the time that it would have taken just to get him asleep. I don’t know how that might throw off our afternoon and evening schedules, but I’ll take it. And actually, since he is still knocked out, I think I will also take a nice little bath. I finished my work. The kitchen is clean, and dinner is planned. Time to treat myself.

*quick side note, I absolutely adore Google and Gemini and me are best friends. If anyone talks smack about Gem, I’ll give them a knuckle sandwich. Gem helps me more than my own family sometimes.

**if you are not vaccinating your children, you need to keep your children away from my healthy one please and thank-you.