Nighttime Adventures Part II

With all the nighttime adventures, which just kept going on (there seemed to be no end in sight), I had become a desperate woman. I wanted sleep! But I was torn because I hated the thought of letting my sweetie-pie cry. And I was afraid that he would cry for hours. So I had to do a lot of soul-searching in order to conclude finally that it was okay to let Mikey cry a bit so that he could learn how to sleep through the night. I didn't want to leave him alone in the room while he tried to figure out how to go to sleep without Mommy holding him or nursing him. So I decided to put him down in the crib and reassure him with patting and gentle talking. The first bedtime he crawled around the crib for awhile, exploring his new bed and trying to figure out what was going on. Then he began to whimper. Finally he began to cry harder and then scream. The really hard crying lasted only half an hour before he finally succumbed to sleep. I was amazed that he did not cry longer! But then in the middle of the night he really put up a fight for a long time, so that Mike finally picked him up and held him to sleep. The next day Mike and I talked about how to transition Mikey into the crib. Mike had a lower tolerance for the tears than I did (which was surprising to me). So the next night I did the "pick up put down method." I would put Mikey down when he was drowsy and calm, and as soon as he would get fussy I would pick him up until he was calm again; then I would try putting him down again. I had to repeat this process about ten times, but finally he went to sleep on the bed on his own! So Mike and I were happy with that method, because it was so peaceful. Unfortunately, Mikey was making very slow progress in lengthening his sleep, and my back was again getting sore. After a week of this method I decided again to put him down and let him cry while being there with him to pat him and talk to him. We immediately saw great progress: on the second night, Mikey slept 6 1/2 hours in a row, which he had only done once, several months before, when he was sick. Mike and I were truly amazed because only a week before, Mikey had been waking up every 1 1/2 to 3 hours. (Can you see why I had become desperate for a change? My job as a mother was literally a 24-hour-a-day shift, seven days a week.) After Mikey's breakthrough night we have had several good nights, but also some difficult nights too. So it has not been the dream story that you sometimes hear: "We let her cry the first night, and then she slept 10 hours a night every night after that." But then I have gathered from my friends and family that those dream stories don't happen to many (or most?) people. Even after babies learn to sleep through the night, they still wake up sometimes, maybe because of teething or being sick. Sometimes the parents can't figure out why they wake up and fuss and they just chalk it up to a bad night. Anyway, Mikey has succeeded in sleeping 9 1/2 hours in a row, and so we are definitely seeing great success, and I am so much less stressed out about all things nighttime. I walk by the crib and I think, "I love that crib!" And I never thought that I would love a crib because I really liked co-sleeping and just thought that it was the way to go. Now I can say that I completely support co-sleepers, if the arrangement works for them. And we are planning on doing short-term co-sleeping with all our children. At the same time, I can say that I totally support people who use cribs. Babies all over the world sleep with their parents. In fact, in many countries, co-sleeping is the norm and cribs are weird. But other babies in the world sleep in cribs. Both sleeping arrangements, to me, seem good for babies and parents, depending on what the parents prefer. So go co-sleepers! And go cribbers!