Fri 29 Dec 2006
Honestly? I Thought It Would be Worse
Posted by Liza under The Real Live Boy
[5] Comments
We let Noah “cry it out” last night when he woke up.
It was horrible in the moment, but it only lasted about 15 minutes, the first time.
Five or so minutes after he stopped crying, Jill went to check on him, only to discover as the door moved an inch, that Noah was not sleeping. He was sitting up and watching the door. The second it moved, he cried again.
That actually convinced me that we were doing the right thing. He was crying because he wanted to hang out with us, not because he was hurt or needed something.
Another five or so minutes of crying, and then he fell asleep for real.
That happened again around 4 am. But when he fell asleep, he slept until 6:40 am.
It was horribly, horribly hard to listen to him cry and not pick him up, and we almost cracked a couple of times. But he does need to learn to soothe himself, and his mommies were starting to lose it from lack of sleep.
Wish us luck again tonight.
December 29th, 2006 at 8:29 am
It sucks doesn’t it… but the extra sleep you’ll get is so worth it. We figured this out recently with Shepherd, and since then, he’s been sleeping almost consistently through the night (cross my fingers!!). Hope you guys have another successful night tonight with the CIO. And your Noah is incredibly precious!!!
December 29th, 2006 at 10:22 am
It’s so hard to do, but it really is worth it in the end.
We let Henry cry it out, and although I’m barely equipped with the coping skills to get through it… I know it’s the right thing to do.
Henry’s cried for as long as two hours–which is heartbreaking. But he’s crying because he wants to play…he’s in his crib doing his Crib Prisoner routine.
We’ll go in every 10 minutes or so and reassure him that we’re here but it’s time to sleep.
Generally speaking, it’s been a good thing for us. Not only does it teach him when it’s sleepy time, but also teaches him how to self-soothe and put himself to sleep.
For us, some nights are better than others. We can have a week of greatness followed a week of greatness. It’s definitely a test of patience, but…
Good luck tonight! You and Jill should hang on to one another tightly and ride the wave!
December 29th, 2006 at 12:14 pm
Good luck! We’ve been sleep training Julia and it’s been hard in the moments that she’s crying, but oh so blissful when you get more than 2 hours of consecutive sleep. And then? Then they start sleeping a bit late… and THAT’s heavenly!
December 30th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
Oh, we are so on this tonight. We half tried last night, but couldn’t hang with it. Knowing that this is going on in other corners of the lesbian fam world, I feel like I could give it another go.
December 30th, 2006 at 10:18 pm
Good luck, Kwynne! We almost cracked a few times the first night, and clung to each other pretty much the entire time he was crying.
One random factoid that helped me stay strong: intermittent positive reinforcement is the most powerful kind. So if you keep trying and then breaking down, it\’ll be even harder. I think if it were harder, I might just lose it.