To Cry or Not to Cry

First off: To each his/her own. If there's any piece of advice that I can guarantee as tried and true to the new mom/dad, it's the basic fact that each parent must find their own style of parenting that works for them. Well unless that parent's a negligent drug-addict.....but for the most part, there is no one 'perfect method'. Perhaps I'm preaching to the choir....

Anyway, for the most part, the "cry it out" method has worked for us. Now don't get me wrong, I was adamantly opposed to it at first. When we transitioned Thurston to his own crib, I couldn't let him cry for more than three minutes or I was in tears as well. Dave and I had a few heated discussions over what was better for our son: letting him cry, or preventing sleep? Now both of us work full time and we are the sole care providers (no outside childcare) of our son. We therefore had little time (or energy) to spare for even getting Thurston to sleep at night. The stress of the night time routine is overwhelming when it stems from whether or not your child is going to scream his head off every evening. Even our pediatrician assured us it was a good thing to let him cry it out. Now, when I finally relaxed and realized it was actually ok for him to cry, if it meant he slept better, I was able to not dread the approaching evening routine.

At first, he would cry and cry and cry and cry and I thought this would never work. I felt intense guilt and it took every will of mine not to go into his room and pick him up to soothe him. Doing this, I learned, only made the matter worse and prolonged sleep. Go Figure??! Over time, he cried less and less when we put him down to bed. Now, he usually just whimpers for a little bit before drifting off. When he wakes up to nurse in the night, I can usually set him back into his crib with hardly a protest. Our evenings have returned these days. After he goes down (sometime between 8-9), I can work-out, clean, read, write a blog, cook, or just veg out and relax. I have my own time again and it's blissful. He still has a bad night from time to time, but overall, I am comfortable with our routine. It works for us.