Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Not ready to let go

My gut tells me that I will never let Sweet One cry it out. From the deepest center of my core I can not hear her crying and not answer the call. She's communicating, trying to tell me something. If I were crying and BL didn't check on me I'd be pissed! I do understand thatit is important she learn to soothe herself and fall asleep on her own. When I feed her just before I go to bed I put her in the bed beside mine wide awake and she falls asleep no problem. Often I can rock her until she is drowsy and then she'll fall asleep in her crib. However, there are times like tonight. She nears sleep so quickly while I'm rocking her that I place her in the crib after a few minutes. 5-10 minutes later she is awake. Her Dad goes upstairs to try to comfort her while I'm trying to finally get some supper in me. "Thanks, but no thanks," she says. I go upstairs and rock her again but tonight I decided I wanted her to fall asleep without more rocking. I rubbed her head, spoke to her a little and then she fell asleep. Well, not quite. She woke up after a few minutes again and was crying harder this time. "You can do this, you can fall asleep," I told her over and over. I rubbed the 10-11 inches that is her head. I rubbed her belly. I held her legs so they wouldn't kick so much. I did everything to stop myself from picking her. But her crying got harder. She was becoming angrier. "Don't you get it? I want you to hold me!" I gave in and after 30 seconds of rocking she was 99% asleep. I didn't rock her for long, just enough.

Maybe I am teaching her to be too dependant on me. Maybe she will naturally put herself to sleep more as she gets older. Perhaps I am too dependant on her. I don't know and I don't care what all the experts say. I've been following my gut this far and it has been ok. Tonight wasn't the night. The more she cried, the less resistance I had. I'm embracing the moments where I can comfort her because I fear that sooner than I'd like it won't be as easy to do so.

And now, 45 minutes after she fell asleep we start again.

1 comment:

  1. I think those experts just need to research something to keep their jobs, most of them probably don't have kids or had their noses too far in their books to remember what it was like. Give her time. I woke up at 5:30 every day for a good month or more and thought I wouldn't make it through the days. You will and she'll get so much better. Give her time, like a few more months or even just weeks kinda time.

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