“Cry It Out”
August 30, 2013
While we’ve figured out a good routine with feeding Felicity, sleep is pretty unstructured. It’s not so bad at the beginning of the day, but between 8 p.m. and 2 a.m., she seems to need someone to hold her all the time. She’ll fall asleep on me and then when I put her down to sleep, she wakes up. We swaddle her, but her arms break free every time and then she wakes herself up when they spasm.
One night, Doug says we should just let her “cry it out.”
I don’t think this is a good idea. She seems too young. She’s only 2 weeks old. She still finds comfort in my heartbeat, so I think she’s crying because the world apart from me is still a very confusing place. But I don’t want to argue with Doug either. We’re a team.
The “witching hour” approaches. I feed her at 8:00 p.m. and she falls asleep at 8:30. Around 8:45, she is crying again.
“Okay, let’s give her 20 minutes. If she can’t calm down, we’ll help her,” he says.
Ah…Aaaa… Aha…. Aaaaaa! Aha… Ah… Aaaaa! Aaaaa! Aaaaaaaa!
The sides of my heart pinch together.
Ah…
“See? She’s asleep,” he points out.
A few minutes pass.
AAAaaaa! Aha…. AAAA! Aaaaaaaa…
I look at him and purse my lips. His eyebrows arch.
AAAA! Ah… AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaa…. AAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaa…..
I grip the sides of my head.
“She’s fine, Sweets.”
“No,” I shake my head. “She’s not!”
“We just fed her. She’s fine.”
I rub my temples, my hands in my hair. Her cry is reaching out to me. It’s pulling at me.
Aa… AAAAAAAAaaaaa! Aha… AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaa!
“Oh my God, I can’t take this,” I say.
“Sweets, she’s fine.”
“Well, I’m not fine,” I admit. “I’m not ready to do this and I don’t think she is either.”
He sighs, clearly frustrated, but I go in and pick her up. I sit down with her, place her on my chest. She calms.
“We’ve got to let her cry it out,” he says. “Or she’s going to learn that she can get whatever she wants like this.”
“She’s two weeks old.”
“Fine,” he tosses his hands in the air.
I feel like we are speaking different languages. Was he hearing the same cry that I was? Where was this intense desire to master control over this baby coming from? Did he really think that she had the mental capacity to manipulate?
You’re both exhausted. Give yourselves a break, I remind myself.
Becoming Mother 
Ugh. We’ve never been able to do any level of crying it out at any age. I have a very similar emotional response to a baby (or even a manipulative toddler 😉 that is truly crying, and I think we are made that way so that we don’t ignore them and so that we feel compelled to go to them and comfort them. Any time we even attempted it, I never made it very long, and I always thought about the “Mad about You” episode where they sleep train Mabel and the regret that Jamie feels: https://youtu.be/U6mCIwm5o1M?t=19m34s –It’s enough to make me forget about it and try a different method that’s easier for everyone.
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I totally forgot about that episode! That is a good one. 🙂
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That excerpt almost made me tear up too! We had the hardest time getting Sue to sleep through the night. It was only when she turned 14 months that she was finally able to put herself to sleep and sleep through the night. Just like it sounds from your post above, I couldn’t bear hearing her cry and yearning for comfort. We coslept with her, and breastfed and carried her all the time. I enjoyed it most of the time, until I got very tired and yearned for some time with my husband. But now looking back at it, it was just a period I had to go through, and now she sleeps wonderfully. I was so proud of her FINALLY being able to sleep through the night I dedicated half of my blog to it! 🙂 Thank you for stumbling onto my blog today and liking my post, I appreciate it! I’m enjoying the excerpts of your book, great way to sell it! I may be your next customer! 🙂
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Oh, I hope so! As I’ve written in other posts, this is also a great book for baby showers for first-time moms. I’ve also sold copies to women who are in book clubs, so there’s another reason to buy it! 🙂 Thanks for following! It’s nice to hear from new readers!
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