Crying It Out

        Hearing one of my kids cry and not doing anything about it is torturous to me.  Yet in the case of trying to get Hunter to sleep better, there didn’t seem to be any way around it.  Each night Hunter consistently woke up about the time I went to bed and being afraid he would wake up Zoey, who we always struggle to get to sleep, we rushed to take him out of their room.  To calm him down enough to go back to sleep we gave him a bottle and laid him down between us.  Then we all proceeded to not sleep through the night.  In attempts to get comfortable, Hunter kicked us, hit us in the face and at times would lay on top of us.   He woke up often throughout the night and we’d give him more bottles in the hopes this would help him back to sleep.  On the rare occasions when he slept in his crib or play pen we all slept soundly.  He couldn’t roll around too much and we didn’t have to fear him rolling off of our queen size bed.  As he was waking up so often, it became easier to put him in our bed.  Was giving him bottles in the middle of the night bad for his teeth?  Of course.  Was giving him a bottle helping us get some sleep?  Hell yeah (or so we thought).  We did what we needed to do to survive the nights and didn’t know what else to do.  All we really wanted was to get some freaking sleep.

I had to work the day of Hunter’s 15 month checkup, so I sent Joe with instructions, determined that he come back with a magical answer that would ensure a resolution to all of our sleep problems.  I suspected what the doctor would advise, but hoped for otherwise.  The doctor said it had become part of his routine to wake up, come into our bed and drink his bottles.  We had to break him of the habit and to do that we needed nerves of steel and, yes, to do this we needed to let him cry it out.  

We were familiar with the cry it out method, as we had used a version of it with Zoey, after having the same problems we were now having with Hunter.  I hated it, but it worked.  Here we were again with another baby and just so exhausted.  We had yet to really try the cry it out method with Hunter because he and Zoey share a room and it’s tough for me to do.  The doctor said after a few nights the routine would be broken.  It seemed too good to be true and it was, as it took about five days to break the pattern. Each day got easier until, miraculously, he began sleeping through the night.

The first night was the worst.  I was still torn about our choice, but not knowing what else to do, we were going ahead with it.  He cried for at least an hour and I was crawling out of my skin.  His crying woke up Zoey, as we had feared it might.  She came into our room and fell asleep in our bed.  I continued to listen to my crying Hunter with my heart pounding.  I laid there beside Zoey imagining what Hunter must’ve been thinking.  Did he feel abandoned or just ignored?  It broke my heart thinking about what he might be feeling.  At about the hour mark, I got up and stood outside his door, wanting to burst inside and take him in my arms.  I heard him coughing and sort of gagging between cries.  Joe tried to keep me from going in, but I couldn’t contain myself anymore and rushed in just as he threw up a little.  I changed his pajamas and held him close.  I was under no circumstances going to put him back into his crib that night to cry any longer and maybe never again, questioning if we were doing the right thing.  

He calmed down quickly and I attempted to get him back to sleep by laying with him on Zoey’s bed, as she was sleeping in ours.  He kept moving around and sitting up and just wanted to play.  After about an hour of this, I took him into the living room to try sleeping on the couch, as we had down with him before.  He still struggled to go to sleep, but eventually did sometime after one a.m., only to wake up several more times that night.  This just wasn’t going to work.  I resolved to try the cry it out method again the next night.

On night two he woke up around his usual time.  After he cried for a while, I went in with a sippy cup of water.  I picked him up and sat down with him on my lap.  He drank some water and calmed down.  I told him it was bedtime, showed him it was still dark outside and sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star as I do every night before I put him to bed.  I gave him kisses and put him back down.  He cried for about half an hour after I left the room, then fell asleep.  He woke up about 3 a.m, but after a few minutes of whining went back to sleep.  He slept until morning and I woke up with a start amazed that I had just had several hours of uninterrupted sleep.  We continued doing this and after about five days he was sleeping through the night and so were we.

During those first few days, I worried that Hunter would wake up in the morning upset with us, but he didn’t.  He was always fine and well rested, having forgotten the night before.  He’s happier throughout the day now and eats better than he was when he was getting milk throughout the night.  Granted, we had a rough couple of days, but we stuck with it and it had paid off.  It was worth the torment of hearing him cry for a few nights for the sleep that we all get now.

Strangely, there was a downfall to Hunter sleeping through the night, as I now spend less time with him.  I get home from work about an hour and a half before his bedtime.  When we slept with us, I was with him all night and in a way it was a comfort to be so close to him, even when I was annoyed with him for kicking me. The time spent with him in the middle of the night wasn’t quality time but it was time.  Also, often he woke up before I left for work and followed me around as I got ready.  Now, he’s sleeping soundly, usually snoring when I leave in the mornings.  While this makes me sad, I know it’s for the best.  I have started keeping him up a little longer at night, so I have a little more time with him.

Instinctually, it’s difficult for a mother (and some fathers, though Joe admits he wasn’t too upset by it) to hear her child crying, it goes back to the cave man period when a baby’s cry meant they were in danger.  I always knew Hunter was safe in his crib and if I was uncertain, I peeked in to make sure.  If I do happen to wake up at night, though often I don’t wake up until my alarm goes off (which is amazing!), I still go into the kids room to listen to them breathe.  Usually they’re both snoring loudly (I think they inherited Joe’s sinuses) in their beds.  It just took a few nights of me fighting my instincts to get all of us on a sleep routine.                

I’m not a parenting expert and will never claim to be.  I just know what it’s like to be a mom to Zoey and Hunter and rarely do I feel like a parenting expert with them.  No two parents have the same parenting style and we all have different ways of showing our love.  In the end, we all just want what is best for our own kiddos.  We do what we need to do for ourselves and for our kids to survive.  I still haven’t stopped giving Hunter a bottle during the day, as the doctor suggested, or taken away his binky, as the dentist recommended.  We’re down to one bottle in the house, but I’m just not quite ready to take it away from him because he loves it so much and it comforts him.  I’m trying to give him less binky time, so he can start talking more, but right now, he’s dependent on it and in a way so are we, and for now, that’s okay.