Cry It Out, Baby!

Holy hell, I am sitting here listening to Quinn cry and I am at my wits end. Here is the issue: We said so long, farewell, see you later alligator to the pacifier--the "night night" as Quinn calls it. He IS 2 and some months now. At bedtime, he ends up crying for about 10 minutes before going down for the night, but the naps are still pretty bad. I just went up there to soothe him, but the truth is, I am just an agitator. I am sure seeing me added on an extra 20 minutes of crying, because that's how long I waited the first time. I swore I would not bug him during naps again while he is learning to go to sleep because of this one time when I thought he needed me. His eyes were actually just closing when I opened the door. Suffice to say, that was a big mistake. This is a trend with my kids. Neither of them (as we have embarked on some sleep training of O as well) seem to like it when we try to go in every few minutes. I totally get it, they look at me like, "Lady, I am CRYING here. A back rub when I clearly want OUT of this crib is not doing it for me. Are you stupid? Don't you get it! Let me out!" In fact, it's worse with Quinn because he can actually talk now so I have to listen to him cry, "Mommy, I want to get dowwn!" So brutal. But whatever. I am over not trying to do it. I need my sleep and am VERY convinced that the version of me without sleep is waaay more damaging to these kids than whatever trauma a week of sleep training does. So keep your comments to yourself if you disagree! Defensive, much?

I did run into one mom in the playground who I didn't realize was soo into attachment parenting. The woman is breastfeeding her two year old at night. How could I not know? It's fine if she wants to do that, but maybe I should have thought before I mentioned that it was a stressful week because we were starting on sleep training of O. Her face got all funny looking and she said, "well, there are a lot of levels to that if you feel like you need to do that." I was all, "Oh yeah. Totally. There are lots of ways to do it." And then she said that she doesn't have any judgment "except when people leave their kids to cry by themselves for an hour." I wanted to say, "lady, what do you think sleep training is??" By the way, baby O hasn't cried for a full hour yet, and it is so satisfying when she is quiet after 20 minutes. I can't say it's been so horrible.

Did I just post about crying it out? On my mommy blog? I swore off posting on controversial parenting subjects because I can't take the heat when people don't like it. Oh well. What's done is done.

In any case, for or against it, I am no longer listening to Q cry. Which means, I am guessing, it is because he is asleep. I better go watch my TiVoed Top Design while I can. Go Nathan!