Sleep Experiment: Day 2

Sometimes it's tough being a mom. There is nothing in the world that can unravel me as profoundly or as quickly as my baby screaming. Ever fiber of my soul just aches to hold her and comfort her. I just want to make everything instantly better. This, however, is not always the best thing for her in the long run. For instance, hubby and I are trying to teach our little gal to go to sleep on her own. Previously, I have been very adamant that we hold her and rock her to sleep, and pick her up again if she starts crying when we lay her down. I felt it was incredibly important for the first few months to make her feel secure, and help her understand that her needs will always be met. Now, however, I feel she's smart enough and old enough to start going to bed on her own.

Previous to yesterday: Putting E to bed consisted of swaddling her, feeding her, and some extremely long turns bouncing her and holding her. And then after she fell asleep we would continue to hold her for a minimum of 5 minutes - because we learned that she's tricky, and likes to make us think she's asleep when she's really not.

Starting yesterday: Feed her, rock her, read her a story, give her a binkie, and put her in bed. The end. Ignore that her eyes are still half open, and brace myself for the screams.

Yesterday she screamed [I do not use this term loosely. She screamed] for thirty minutes. I would go in about every 10 minutes to check on her and make sure she hadn't rolled over, and try to give her her binkie. Finally after a half hour I couldn't take it any more. I was on the brink of tears myself, and she was still so upset. So I picked her up, fed her for about five minutes, and though she was still slightly awake, I put her back down. And that was it! Success!

Tonight it only took 20 minutes. I did not have to feed her a second time. After about 20 minutes, husband went in to check on her and make sure she wasn't hurt, gave her the binkie, and she whimpered a couple more times (I'm sure just to tell us she still wasn't pleased) and then fell asleep. Thank goodness.

It's agonizing to listen to her screaming, but I also know that it's important for her to learn to self-calm. Plus, I simply can't rock her for an hour every night for the rest of her life. I hope it keeps getting better each night. We took cookies to all of our neighbors in our apartments as an apology and thank you for putting up with the screams.