Crying it Out.

The last few nights Bayley has woken up for no apparent reason around 2 or 3am. She cries and is unconsolable until I pick her up. Then she snuggles against me and goes back to sleep. If I put her down, sometimes she wakes back up in another hour or two. This obviously wears me out. The last two times I just took her back to bed with me and she slept soundly until time to get up. This is not something I want to continue. While I love seeing her sweet little face as soon as I wake up, I just like my space to stretch out. We only have a queen sized bed and let's face it... for two people that's barely enough room.

So I pulled up my browser yesterday at work and it's set to a developmental thing for Bayley's age. The first topic this week was "Does your child wake up for no apparent reason in the middle of the night and won't go back to sleep?" I said.. YES! Then it said, "It could be nightmares or general fears. Learn different theories on how to get your child to soothe herself back to sleep." Oh NO. I remember the "cry it out" method from when Z was little. This is not going to be easy.

I talked to a few friends with babies and also to a few of the pediatricians who I work for. They all said that she has to learn to soothe herself back to sleep and I need to do the "cry it out" method. I follow our nighttime routine and put her to bed awake. Okay. This won't go over well, but okay. Then I have to listen to her cry, no wait... SCREAM... and I cannot go in there for 5 minutes. I can pat her head, talk to her, etc. but then I have to leave after a minute.

So, I did bottle, bath, book, then layed her down at 7:50pm. She immediately started crying. I talked to her for a minute, then walked out of her room. I came back in after 5 minutes. Then I left after a few seconds and stayed out for 10 minutes, then 15 minutes. She fell asleep around 8:30 for about 45 minutes. Then she woke up crying again. I let her cry while I did a workout on the wii and Joe came in. I went in every 10-15 minutes this round. Finally, around 10pm, we walked in and Joe sang her a song and I sat in the floor with my laptop while on Facebook. She got mad when Joe left, but she noticed me sitting there and started crying. She finally fell asleep for good around 10:30pm. The good thing is that she wore herself out so much that she didn't wake up last night...or if she did, she didn't cry.

At 7am, she woke up crying and I gave her a bottle and walked out. I had to get in the shower. She drank some of it and went right back to sleep.

So...tonight is Night Two of Hell.

Luckily for Joe, he's in class til 9pm so I'll have to go at it alone. Last night I'd walk outside the front door and look at the plants in our yard. I was talking to my mom on the phone the whole time too. She was very supportive.

On Facebook, some of my friends from high school said, "I just couldn't do it. My kid slept with me until he/she was 4." W.T.F. Call me selfish, but I don't want to share my bed with my child. Especially while it's only a queen size. And when are you supposed to have any kind of intimacy with your husband? That could be why these people only have 1 kid. (or maybe they wanted just 1. I dunno.)

Bayley has always been a good sleeper until recently. That article I mentioned earlier said that babies at this age start having nightmares and general fears. Great. My problem is that I've almost always put Bayley in her swing or rocked her myself and she's gone to sleep. Now we're trying the "cry it out" method.

It WAS nice to go to bed and not be awakened at 3am with a screaming baby, so maybe this will pay off --- preferably SOON.