The time has come, the time that I said would never come because I didn't believe in it and thought it was cruel... sleep training time.
I put Avery to bed every night, religiously, the same way. I lie in our bed and read to her, I cuddle her and talk to her, I breastfeed her until she is fast asleep, leave her in our bed until we are ready to go to bed, and then move her over to her crib. We both love our little time together and Avery goes to sleep easily and generally sleeps until at the very least, 6am when she will come into our bed for a little snack and sleep again until about 8 or 9.
This was fine for us for a long time, months even, but evidence has shown lately that this is not so much a time for anyone else but me.
We have left her with our parents on a couple of occasions to go out and all ended badly. She was upset, crying, wouldn't go to sleep, wouldn't stay asleep, etc. At one point she got so bad with my mother that she had to call us back from our dinner party. We left her with Brad's father at one point and she screamed her face off until we came home from supper, although he wouldn't call and tell us. Brad's mother described her time with Avery as "getting a run for her money". This was not going so hot.
Last night was the last straw. I went to dinner and a movie with my friend and Brad was in charge of bedtime, which is not that big of a deal to him, thankfully, as he's a pretty hands on dad. For Avery though, it was apparently the biggest deal on the planet.
She proceeded to lose her effing mind. Brad told me, as he was passing out from sheer exhaustion when I got home, that she had screamed until she lost her breath. She was inconsolable. She wanted nothing to do with the bottle even though it was my pumped milk. She wailed from bedtime, which is around 7, on and off until going for 11pm.
She was like something that normal humans only deal with via Ouija board. Had there been a sort of monster under her bed, he surely would have packed his bags and moved on to a child that was not scarier than he was.
Brad eventually, not out of frustration but out of pure loss of ideas, had to just lay her in her crib and let her "cry it out", which is a term I hate, for the record. At that point, however, she was so exhausted that she fell asleep within minutes.
Normally I would be in complete opposition to this "sleep training" racket. It's my opinion that babies communicate by crying and if we ignore their crying than what does that teach them? All I can picture is her alone in her crib, crying for someone who never comes. This breaks my heart. However, the inability to leave the house sans baby, paired with the fact that we are going to New Orleans in May without her, makes some sort of a going to bed routine slightly, though painfully, necessary.
So, tonight was night one. I read to her, cuddled her, fed her, and after she was finished nursing, but before she drifted off to sleep, I picked her up and brought her into her crib.
At first she was ok. I turned on her aquarium, rubbed her belly, gave her her pacifier, which she only uses as a teething ring really, and then stood up. She gave me a look as if to say, "Ahhh, excuse me? What the hell is going on here? Joke's over mom, bring me back over to your bed, and take your top off."
With a deep breath, I turned around, and with the turning of my back to her, it began.
As all parents know, babies have several different cries. There is the "OH MY GOD! SOMETHING IS VERY WRONG!" cry, there is the "I'm SO mad! Look at how mad I am!" cry, there is the "I'm starving! Oh God I'm so starving, I haven't eaten in at least two hours, I'm wasting away to nothing" cry, there is the, "There is something in my diaper that is pleasantly warm and squishy but is kind of creeping up my back" cry, and finally, there is the "Ahhh, where do you think you're going? Hello?" cry.
Avery was giving me the latter. Loud wails that would last a couple of seconds, pause, loud wail again. Nothing frantic or painful. Thankfully it only lasted for about 3 hours before she fell asleep. Just kidding, it was 10 minutes, but it felt like a lot longer to everyone in the house who was not Brad or Nixon... so just me.
Thankfully the fact that I have always answered her cries, as well as followed almost everything else that goes with attachment parenting, Avery is pretty good at only crying when something is actually wrong. It's as though she knows that I'm going to be there if she needs me, so if she doesn't need me, she just sort of hangs out.
Tonight, I would say that she was complaining/protesting her new sleeping arrangements. Save it for the debate team, missy.
I'm hoping it gets better from here. I'm praying that this is not going to damage her emotionally to the point where she sulks around our house in 13 years time with her face pierced, greasy hair, black lipstick and a trench coat.
I've tried Googleing research on a link between sleep training and children who mutilate animals, start meth labs in their Disney Princess toy boxes, or end up starring in an episode of Hoarding: Buried Alive, but luckily have found nothing thus far.
I guess we're all just going to have to stay tuned...
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