Today Jonah had his first trip to the “Little Farm.” We’ll have to go again at least one more time, because his father wasn’t with us. But we’ll probably go more often than that because he loved it.
He kicked his legs and giggled and sucked in little joyful sucks of air and cooed at the goats, the sheep, the chickens, the big brown cow that sauntered over as if she understood the word “celery,” understood it was her job to meet him at close range with her giant globe of a sad brown eye.
Tonight, we tried a later bedtime, in case maybe that would help. You know, help him not to cry. So much. Or something?
He was quiet, calm, compliant with the whole bedtime routine, until his back hit the mattress. And then he started screaming.
Hysterical, wailing, shrieking. Angry, loud, hoarse.
I may have lasted 5 minutes, or 7, before I decided I couldn’t take it tonight. I don’t know what to believe anymore. I don’t know who to trust. I just didn’t want him to cry.
I walk in the room. He sees me. Waves his arms and legs, desperate. Yes. This time. I pick him up and hold him. He buries his head in my shoulder, one hand clinging to my chest. He is sweaty, almost hyper-ventillating. It takes ten minutes for his breath to slow to normal. I don’t rock or sing. Just hold him. When he seems asleep, I put him back in the crib. Of course, he wakes up and cries. But not quite as before.
There’s a way that he cries when he’s about to fall asleep, especially when he’s woken himself up after having fallen asleep on one of us. It’s a cry mixed with pacifier suck-sucks. Doesn’t usually last long.
Within a few minutes, he is asleep.
I try to tell myself that tonight was worse, and that’s why I went to him, but Scott says it’s just that tonight I was tired and didn’t have the patience for it.
Tonight would officially count as “waffling.” I’m considering a new system where I always go in and pick him up when he cries if it sounds like he’s escalating instead of winding down. Will this make him spoiled, demanding, and manipulative? Will it herald a new era of the boy never going to bed at a reasonable hour?
How long did it take me to get to this “new” idea? Can I put this strategy in my accidental parenting book? Will I change my mind again and let him cry for 45 minutes tomorrow night?
I. don’t. know.
FWIW, I think it’s very important for you to be there for him. You have to follow your instinct. Babies can’t be “spoiled”, right? He wants to be near you, I don’t see what’s wrong with that. I know that many others have a different opinion, I am just one of the people in the opposite camp.
I wish I still had the link to it. .I read about this study some time ago that just broke my heart. They had dozens of infants that they monitored, while they fell asleep. Basically, the ones that managed to end up crying themselves to sleep would eventually stop not cause they were used to it, but because they had become utterly despondent and could no longer rely on their parents. When he cries, it’s cause he still trusts you will come. The cry changes when he starts to give up. These babies, during the day, will be more clingy. Years later, it was shown that those despondent babies are more afraid of risk and less confident in general. I cried myself while reading it. I never wanted to read it again which is why I just closed the browser.
Some people may argue that that is a load of hoey, but it is what some researchers found.
The link I do have saved is from Dr. Sears. It goes over how excessive crying causes neurological changes:
http://www.askdrsears.com/html/10/handout2.asp
Found some others from a community I belong to:
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=a1a74c84-c59d-414d-bbb7-3860fee988f1
http://drbenkim.com/articles-attachment-parenting.html
http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/1998/04.09/ChildrenNeedTou.html
I hope it’s ok that I am advocating a contrary opinion and that you are not offened.
A’s last blog post..Re-design
I do modified version of what you have been trying. I let him cry to a few minutes and then go in and give him is pacifier, rub his tummy and head then leave again never picking him up. If he starts crying again I go back in and do the same thing but wait a few minutes longer. I keep repeating the process but wait a bit longer in between going in to him. It lets him know I am still here for him but also that I am not going to pick him up that it is bedtime.
I used it with my two older ones and it was great it took about a week and then I could put them down and they would go to sleep on there own. I am starting the process now with my 6m old and last night I only had to go in twice.
If you are interested you can e-mail me heathermier at peak.org for more details or the book I used is Solve your childs sleep problems by Richard Ferber
Good Luck
Heather
Dear A.,
I am not offended at all. I appreciate your thoughtful, non-judgmental response and I read the articles you linked.
It’s a complicated topic. Some of those articles mean to combat the parenting style that would have babies cry alone during the day. My grandmother warned me about “spoiling the baby” when he was a newborn. Today, I believe that most advocates on either end of the spectrum do not promote leaving a baby to cry under six months of age.
In terms of crying at bedtime, I have complicated feelings on this topic.
Before Jonah was born, I thought I would be an attachment supermom. But life didn’t turn out quite like that for us.
At the same time, I feel very good about the choices we made: to co-sleep until Jonah was six months old, to respond to his cries, day or night, until he was seven months old. And to try CIO at night and for some naps.
Some of what we’ve done had been based on what we were capable of, and some based on Jonah’s personality. He was colicky, and not easily consolable those first three-to-four months. I could not and would not consider leaving him to cry then, except the one or two times when I was so stressed out and sleep deprived that I had to put him down for a few minutes for both of our safety.
As I’ve recorded in this blog, when I did change, move him to the crib, try CIO, it was because I felt we were ready, all three of us.
It hasn’t been perfect. Of course I hope I haven’t caused him neurological damage. Those articles can scare a lot of moms whose babies are hard to console.
I hear a lot from moms who co-sleep that they can just lie down with the baby for naps or at bedtime, and the baby sleeps. Jonah considers that the best time to practice his dance routines, and his endless magic trick of peekaboo. Party time.
One mom blogger wrote a review of co-sleeping that I related to where she compared sleeping with her toddler to lying next to Don Quixote’s windmill. That certainly was true for us. When we did have Jonah in the bed, rather than the co-sleeping attachment, nobody slept.
Jonah is a lively, happy, energetic, sometimes quite manic, talkative, loving, engaged baby who doesn’t take well to the idea of sleep. I had to make some difficult choices to help him get to sleep and stay asleep.
The fact that he now has many nights with 10-11 hours of continuous sleep (including last night and the night before) makes me feel like some of the stress of CIO was worth it.
Heather —
I wish the shush-pat and reassure-at-intervals technique had worked for us.
We did try it. Jonah is never reassured by patting, rubbing, paci-replacing. I think once or twice in his little life he fell asleep while his head was being stroked, during his early newborn-hood.
For us, the checking at intervals just seemed to make him angrier.
We read Dr. Sears’ Baby Book, The Baby Whisperer, the Mindell book, the Weissbluth book. Burned out before I could reach Ferber, but I think it’s similar to Mindell and aspects of Weissbluth?
It does sound like a nice technique, for those who have success with it. Unfortunately, that wasn’t us.
Sorry it didn’t work for you. I just thought it might of helped. Every child needs something different it seems. It would be so much simpler if the same worked for all of them
It seems though that what you are doing is working for you even if he is crying some. I guess you could think of it this way he will have great lung capacity.
You are a great mom!! Always remember that.
Heather
When my babies were little, this issue seemed so very, very important. Then they got a routine and started going to bed without a lot of fuss.
Now, other things seem really, really scary and important, like…. are we doing the homework right? Is homework necessary or does it ruin their budding psyches? Do we give them enough play dates? Are they in the right schools for their social/emotional/intellectual development? Should we stress good manners and behavior or should we back off and let them explore their behavior and consequences? How to handle negative behavior – x’s on charts, positive reinforcement of good stuff, rewards, what?
and so forth.
This sleep issue feels so incredibly charged when it’s an issue. Then it really does dissolve one day. But I remember how desperate I felt when our sleep routines were so chaotic. You guys really have established a routine that’s much calmer than ours managed to be for years.
You are doing your best and care so very much which is the most important thing. I’m sorry it’s been so difficult.
Those articles can scare a lot of moms whose babies are hard to console.
I think the trick is to be with them even if they’re inconsolable. It’s not CIO if they have someone with them. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be though. . I have a friend whose baby just screamed, no matter what, for the first year. Hearing about it quite a bit has given me some appreciation for how hard it must be for some.
My baby also will not fall asleep if put in bed while awake, she is not one of those easy babies we hear about
I have to hold her in my arms, while nursing her, and rock her, and sing to her. My knees are just about shot now!! When she was younger it would take over an hour, now it takes about 20 mins, unless I’m REALLY lucky in which case it takes 5-10 mins. Once in a blue moon it’ll take over 2 hrs 
Then I have to lay down with her, while ensuring she doesn’t lose the breast, else she’ll wake up. After an hour or so I can get up and leave her be. We do this for naps and at night. It’s the only way we can get her to sleep without causing either of us to cry 😉
So that’s what works for us. I figure if they can’t be babied when they’re actual babies, then when? I also see it as a short term investment: if a human can live to around 100 yrs of age now, what’s a few years of this sort of thing? So it’s worth it to me.
All the best!
A’s last blog post..Re-design
Wow, A., you do a lot for your baby. She’s very lucky.
I’m glad you shared your story in detail here. My hope is that other moms who are looking for experience and ideas about how to handle sleep will see these posts and comments and find them useful.
Sorry to belabour the point, hope I have not said too much (I am very detailed :(). . .anyway, I think you are the one who is doing a lot! Reading about all these techniques, trying all sorts of things, going through stress. My way is the easy and lazy way! It may seem like work, but it really isn’t. I get a tonne of reading done and look forward to the breaks (when I finally get to lay down.) I read like 2-3 novels in bed each week!
Granted, I know that I will have to ease her into sleeping by herself and without my help over the course of years, but I think once I just resigned myself to this fact and accepted it, it all became very simple and straightforward. Your way is certainly much more difficult, but I think results in you having a way easier time at it all in the long term.
I think you’ve probably considered this all already though. .now that I think about it. Thank you for having the grace to allow me to try to help, I guess!
A’s last blog post..The meaning of a gift