Cry It Out (CIO)

I got to a point soon after the hospital stay (during week 4), where I was taking an hour to two hours to put Eden down to sleep. I was pacifying her with my pinky, bouncing her, patting her, rocking her, nursing her... only to put her down and have her fuss again. I even faithfully tried the Baby Whisperer techniques (which, over Thanksgiving weekend, only made me miss every meal we had together). 

So, beginning week 5, I decided to CIO. I know it seems early, but (1) we do have more than one child in this family, and it was getting really exhausting and pretty unmanageable to have to [unsuccessfully] soothe Eden to sleep 4-5 times a day, (2) I am not a very nurturing/soothing person in general, and thus, not that good at putting babies to sleep, and (3) as the Baby Whisperer says, start as you mean to go on, which means, don't start habits you're not willing to keep for years to come [and I wasn't willing to keep up the bouncing, rocking, nursing for very much longer anyway]. 

It's been almost 2 weeks now, and I've been keeping a detailed journal of how long Eden's naps, cries, eating habits, awake times have been. I was flipping through the other day, and Shane asked me what I was noticing. I honestly can't find too much of a pattern, I told him. He told me what he saw--that we have a newborn baby on our hands. haha... I guess so. :) 

These past few days, there have been times when Eden wakes up early from her naps a lot, or nurses every 2 hours through the night, and I'm guessing it might be a growth spurt type of thing. It's kind of hard to see with her, because she really is such an erratic eater, and there isn't a consistent every-two-hours pattern that I can see. But I guess it all comes back to trial-and-error. After all the books, schedules, and rules, it really is what I did with Moses too. Every child really is different.

The good news is that I got to go to bed early with Eden at 7 ish last night (she didn't cry at all going to bed--maybe we've been keeping her up too late!), and she did 3-4 hour stretches all night last night. It was a welcome change from the night before when I had to get up a whole lot between midnight an morning. It was tough. She's been nursing every couple of hours or so today, so hopefully that will help her sleep tonight too. Who really knows.

The actual crying it out hasn't been bad for naps. Sometimes she doesn't cry at all, and the most she cries for naps these days is about 20 minutes. Nighttime is the hardest, and she can cry up to an hour. That's some dedication. I'm going to start her bedtime routine at 5:30/5:45, bathe her and nurse her and try to put her down early tonight and see if that helps (since it did last night). I'll keep you updated.