Air raid sirens in my head, or Sleep Training: Night 1

Moms are programmed so that when the baby cries, it sounds to them as if World War III is upon us. We know in our minds that, in fact, World War III is not actually happening (at least as a result of our baby crying), but we can't help looking over our shoulders for atomic bombs when our babies burst into tears. That is why we may seem a bit uptight when the baby is fussy.

I'm sure you can understand, then, that I haven't been keen on cry-it-out methods of sleep training. Kalina has been so young, so helpless. Could I really let her sob for hours on end, alone in the darkness?

The answer became a resounding yes when my exhaustion tolerance was reached after Thursday night--a night that began with insomnia (since I'd gotten a good 2 1/2-hour stretch the night before) and ended with me getting up every 15 minutes until Matt took pity on me around 6:00 a.m. No more, I said. Nobody is sleeping well, least of all the poor baby.

It finally seemed better to find a way in which we could all get a little more rest. It's in Kalina's best interest, after all. How is her mind supposed to grow and develop if she's not sleeping? How can she even function (these questions I asked of myself as well)? And she'll be fine.

So last night we kicked off the real sleep training. None of this no-cry stuff, which neither of us ended up having the patience for and didn't seem to be working anyway. We decided that the pacifier was a major stumbling block for her, and also that she was eating too often (as many as 4 times in one night recently). Through a process so complicated we needed to write it down on a clipboard and quiz each other on, we decided to take away the pacifier cold turkey, get her stabilized at 2 feedings and eventually get her down to 1 feeding and then later an amazing 0. We decided on the Ferber method, which allows frantic parents to check on the frantic baby every so often.

I was miserable the entire day yesterday. I tried to prepare Kalina for what I knew was ahead by getting her used to sleeping without the pacifier as best I could. After I tucked my sweet baby in for her last scream-free nap around 4:30, I went downstairs and quietly freaked out. Could a baby really cry 11 hours straight? I wondered. I doubted it would work at all.

Matt gave me a pep talk, as did many websites I found through my good friend Google. I ignored, of course, the guilt-laden ones that said I was cruel and insensitive and that it's silly to try to sleep train this early because they're going through so much it won't do any good. I read how to quickly and quietly clean up any vomit present without doing much to disturb the baby.

I baked brownies, because I knew they might come in handy.

And finally the time came. The screams came. Matt did the first check, and then turned off the monitor and headed upstairs. I was to stay downstairs and try not to listen. But who doesn't hear air-raid sirens?

Then the crying stopped. What? Seven minutes into it? Does the baby know that if she'd just screamed 1 more minute she would've earned another visit from one of us? Matt turned up the monitor and we both listened to her breathe.

We promised each other it'd be worse in the middle of the night--after all, we're not going to get through this without a little hazing--and eventually headed off to bed ourselves.

Sure enough, the 11:45 wakeup came along. Instead of rushing to the nursery (and back to bed, and back to the nursery, etc.) as usual to spend my next 45 minutes or so getting the baby back to sleep, I stayed warm and cozy, albeit on edge, because you never know about those atomic bombs. Eight minutes later, peace once again filled the house.

After eating at a generous 1:45, Kalina slept comfortably through until 5:37--her second feeding that the night before had been her fourth instead. She was then up for the day at her usual 6:15 and she even smiled all morning, as if we hadn't been perfectly willing to let her cry the entire night. Please remind me to delete this blog before she's a teenager.

The naps so far have gone just as well if not better.

Is the elusive good night of sleep, which I haven't seen since April, finally in sight? I'll keep you posted.