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Monday, November 1

i let her cry


So Miss K has had an eventful past few days and it seems as if every time she goes down for a nap we end up having to go somewhere, or she's fallin' asleep on either me or Mr. Awesome and just putting her down wakes her up or she gets a little spook and those flailing arms wake her. There's also the fact that she's worried she might miss something so she literally fights taking a nap. I know for a fact that she has not gotten enough sleep these last few days because her normal amicable moods have been very short-lived. So what's a momma to do?

Well there are people who live on both sides of the "just let them cry" debate. I myself believe that initially with a newborn there is nothing wrong with you responding to every little sniffle or cry...they just don't understand yet that they have you wrapped around their little finger. However, at what point do they get it? These past few days I have felt like I've hindered more than helped Miss K in getting some much needed Zzz's so when her 10 o'clock nap rolled around and the usual methods did nothing to get her to sleep but instead increased her level of fussiness and eye rubbing; I knew what I had to do. One more quick once over...

1.) check her diaper...it was clear
2.) give her a little boob action...not interested
3.) shush and walk...are you kidding me
4.) check her temp...no really, what if she was sick and I was just missing something...but nothin'

so I laid her down, covered her up and let her cry. Now, mind you, I couldn't just leave the room. I just couldn't. So she cried. She cried so loud my ears started to ring and for those twenty minutes I questioned whether I was the worst mom in the land. I certainly looked the part, but that's a whole other issue. For a solid 22 minutes she cried and I wanted to cry and then suddenly it was just silent. like someone had just come in and pressed STOP on the screaming baby track. Maybe I haven't scarred my child. Maybe this was the right thing to do...the fact that I knocked over a clock on my way out of the room without so much as a twitch from my little one makes me think...maybe I'm kind of awesome and maybe this won't be the first time I'll have to do what's right for her and we both aren't going to like it.

3 comments:

  1. I had a hard time with the crying thing too after we tried it with Lucy (seriously, let her cry for like 2 hours..it was a mess, she was a mess, I was a mess, blechk) and it didn't work. But with most kids, if you let them cry for about 20-30 mins, they'll give up and go to sleep. Works great for Poppy now. You know your kid the best and what works for some doesn't work for others :) The sleep training will all settle in eventually. I do the same kind of checklist for Poppy as you did :)

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  2. Thanks Em:) Tried it again today and she just stopped and started talking to herself...Really!!

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  3. Isn't that amazing!? It's SO nice when you are able to have a little success like that and feel like "Shazaam! I did something that helped her!" ;) PS Don't be shocked if next week or month she goes through a phase of screaming for an hour and hating naps again..they like to do that to us. Once you get one phase conquered, they like to mix it up :) Just get back in the saddle and try to work your way back to success :)

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