Cry it out

This refers to the oh so popular falling-asleep method which I am not a fan of at all. However, it actually works for us.

Baby Moesha gave us a very hard time when she was born. She had serious jaundice (just few units from having to have IV, actually!) She slept a lot, but mostly during the day. I got so many advices cause everyone seemed to know what I didn't and of course nothing worked. With each advice I got more and more frustrated as it came.

At seven weeks, a light bulb went on in her head and she suddenly realized that nites are for sleepy times. She demanded to be put into her beddie at around 7, so she can get nice and cozy and sleepy and whiney. She did sleep chunks of hours, sometimes she whined for a long time, sometimes she fell asleep right away. Somewhere between 1 - 3 hours (rather closer to 1) she woke up hungry. She nursed (most of the times, few times she got a bottle) and slept another 2 or so hours (sometimes up to 3 or 4 hours). Then she woke up hungry again.

Then we started solids. She still woke up fairly quickly for the first feeding but slept a bit longer after. But never through the night. Everytime I mentioned she's not sleeping, there was always someone who felt so empathetic to kindly add to my frustration by telling me his/her kid(s) do or did. Everyone was telling me do this do that dont do this dont do that, even though I never asked. Most of the advices were not to pick her up, not to feed her at night, or let her cry it out.

And that never worked for us. We let her cry for hours and hours and she cried more and more and chocked and even had problems with breathing. I also don't like the idea of a tiny baby in the dark room, alone, crying for mommy and she's not coming.

But lately I noticed without actively trying that if I actually leave her she does calm down on her own and eventually falls asleep ! So is it possible that she is one of those babies that respond to this method but was just not ready until now? I do now what seems to be hybrid Ferber method (hybrid because I haven't got familiar with it but I know a bit how it works), and she does fall asleep. Today it took about 1/2 hour but she has been sleeping for about 2 hours so far. The best she has done since birth, was to wake up once.

My friend is trying the sleep training but we can't afford it. But I bought her a sound machine so it's now constantly raining in our bedroom. She seems to be sleeping better. The other problem is that she is really tired during the day, she wakes up and within 45 minutes she's ready for her nap. Then in the pm she is really tired and just rubs her eyes, and doesn't want to eat, or play, and whines a lot. So the sleeping through the night would totally benefit both me and her.

I am also frustrated that all the advisers seem to think that I"m doing everything wrong. But I"m not ! Mind you, I know a lot about kids and all kind of stuff. I think I'm doing pretty well and she's just taking her time to cooperate.

Oh well, I still love her to pieces and one day we will both sleep. At least she doesn't wake up before 7.30 !!