Crying It Out

I never thought I was the cry it out type of mom, but it turns out I am. When he slept through the night for the first time at the young age of 10 weeks, I thought I was lucky. He continued his good, 9-hour straight sleep pattern for a solid six weeks. It was during my return to work, so it was perfect timing. But, he suddenly started waking up once or twice a night and hasn't stopped since then.

Things came to a breaking point over the past two weeks. Not only was he not sleeping well at night, he was also on nap strike, leaving him horribly tired. Considering how little sleep he got, he was in a pretty good mood, but he just seemed tired all the time. Brett and I decided that we were worried about his health and development because he was so sleepy and tired all the time.

On Friday night, my sister-in-law watched James while we went to a concert. I mentioned to her that we were considering letting him cry it out because his sleep was so off kilter. She took it upon herself to let him cry it out (pretty presumptuous, but it worked out) and he only cried for 7 minutes. He cried again for less than 5 minutes around midnight, ate at 3:30 and slept until 8:30.

Last night, he cried for about 30 minutes total (we checked in every 10 minutes) and then slept for 9 hours straight. Tonight it took only 7 minutes. Not too bad. I never thought I was the cry it out type and I'm still not 100% sure that I am. I wouldn't have done it for my own convenience, but when it became clear that he was really suffering from lack of sleep, I decided to get serious.

We are also moving to a 2-3-4 nap pattern where we are aiming for a nap two hours after waking up, then a nap three hours after that, then bedtime four hours after that. So far, it seems to be working well.

I just feel good to have a plan in place.