Tuesday, June 7

Hush Little Baby: A Message from the Cry It Out Front

Finally asleep!
I'm pretty sure Katie hasn't slept a whole night in about 3 1/2 weeks now.  Consequently, neither have Doug & I.  We're exhausted.  So much that we even took Katie to the pediatrician this morning just to make sure there was nothing going on like an ear infection or whatever.  There isn't.  According to Dr. E, it's the "terrible twos."  Here's what we think has happened.  We finally noticed over the weekend that her 2 year molars are coming in and maybe they started coming in a couple weeks ago when her sleep started really getting messed up.  Every night her sleep got a little more off.  It took her just a few minutes longer to get settled.  Many many verses of "Hush Little Baby" were sang and lots of cuddles and rocking.  Before we knew it, she wasn't going to bed period and we were horrified!  What happened to our sweet little girl who went to bed "drowsy but awake" and where did this monster child come from?  For the last 2 nights, I've been trying a modified version of "cry it out."  Basically, I lay her down for bed (after our normal snuggles & stories routine) and leave the room.  She cries, I come back in in 5 minutes.  Settle her again and leave.  She cries, I come back in in 10 minutes.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  Each night it has taken over an hour for her to fall asleep and then to make matters worse, she's waking up multiple times during the night.  Well, last night it was just once around 1:30, but again it took over an hour to get her back to sleep.  By the time she did finally fall asleep, I had some major insomnia.  Thank goodness today is my day off.  So tonight, we're going to try Dr. E's approach.  We're going to let her stay up later and then after our routine lay her down.  If she's still not tired enough to just fall asleep and cries, we're going to  wait at least 15 minutes before going in, then we will only spend 10 seconds or so in her room.  I'm just as leary of this as I have been of all of our other attempts, but I'm willing to try anything at this point.  Dr. E said it's not going to work immediately, but hopefully it'll get her from crying over an hour to crying maybe half an hour.  We'll keep you posted.

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