Cry It Out

I've read all the books...any book ever written about how to make your baby a better sleeper. I have it and have read it. I know what I'm supposed to do, but why does it have to be so hard? When I took Leah to the pediatrician at 4 months old, Dr. Jones asked me how Leah was sleeping. I bragged about how we would rock her to sleep and put her in her bed at 8:30 p.m. and she would sleep straight through 'til five in the morning. Well, that same night Leah started waking up during the night again and she hasn't slept through the night since. What did I do? So our routine, if you can even call it that, has been a mess for almost two months now. Nobody in this house it getting a good nights sleep and it sucks! So after re-reading all my baby sleep books and talking with countless other moms. The message was the same: Cry it out! I made a mini effort at this once or twice with Leah during nap time. And, big surprise after a minute of listening to her scream and cry, I rushed in, scooped her up and snuggled with her in my bed while she napped.
Jed and I talked about we decided we were really going to give this approach a try. I'm told it takes 5 night. I think it's going to be a long week. And so it began...I got home from work at 7:45 p.m. Leah really needs to be in bed and asleep by 7:30 p.m. so we're already off to a bad start. However, once I was home, I spent some quality time with her and then took her upstairs. I changed her diaper, gave her some Tylenol ( I think she might be teething), put some Orajel on her little gums, placed her in her crib, gave her her blanket and passy, kissed her, told her I loved her...and left the room. I grabbed the baby monitor and brought it down stairs, but didn't turn it on. It was the longest five minutes of my life. I did anything to distract my thoughts from my sweet baby that was probably screaming her little head off in her bed. After that five minutes had passed, I turned the monitor back on and...there was no screaming. She was just talking to herself,actually complaining is more like it. I couldn't believe it. Leah has always needed her passy to fall asleep, so I went back to her room gave her her passy and walked back out. After another long fifteen minutes I turned the monitor on to total silence. It was great!