Getting Our Zzzzzzzzzzzzzs!

Dearest Jude,

Well, you are on your third night of falling asleep on your own! After the last post when we let you cry it out, we tried again last night and it only took you about ten minutes to fall asleep. Tonight: same thing. I fed you, we put you in the crib, and then I hopped in the shower and by the time I got out, all was quiet. We are so proud of you. That and of course we are thrilled not to be struggling with you hour after hour each night, when all you wanted to do was go to sleep. Everyone kept saying, "he's overtired, he just needs to sleep" and we were like "well, yeah, but he needs to sleep if he needs sleep." The problem was we were just picking you up immediately everytime you showed any kind of distress and then you got so used to it. "They" say that we are doing the right thing by letting you teach yourself to fall asleep on your own as long as we reassure you that we are here for you, not going anywhere, etc, and I believe it! We all really were in great need of more sleep. So relief! And yes, thank you Jude, we aer getting more sleep. You are such a doll.

Today we had fun in our ECFE class. I realized in a moment of clarity why I love the other people in the class so much: they are my age! The other classes I have taken were with 20 and young 30 somethings, which while not a huge difference in human years, makes a lot of difference in the world of raising baby years.

You are still using the pacifier. 'raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! Shocking, still. What's cute is that you seem to enjoy playing with it first, scrutinizing it, almost as if to figure out how it works, before putting it in your mouth. You do that a lot, it seems--try to figure out how things work, which you get from dad, not me.

Last night after dad fed you yogurt and applesauce, you started doing a bunch of consants, among them "da da da da da da da da da deeee, " which was all too cute.


You have a few new breastfeeding developments: In addition to squeezing the milk out of the boob while you are eating--to the point where milk goes all over your face when you pull off--you have recently taken to pinching the opposite nipple while eating off the other. I guess this correlates with that pincer grip deal they say you will be getting right about now, but I was thinking more along the lines of say, a grape.

Dad and I are eating popcorn for dinner. We had every intention to have vegie burgers, but when dad fried them up they tasted awful. The bad news is that I didn't realize they were so awful until i was almost done with my first half. I apologize in advance if the milk is a little off tomorrow...

Sweet dreams, chipatta, xoxoxoxo Mommy

Is that a tear, dear?

Oh Jude, it is now nearly 10:30 and we are trying to let you "cry it out," as they say, but in your case, it is more like letting you cathart it out. You are so unhappy right now and it is making us seriously stressed and sad. We are not sure what to do becauase you sound like one of the folks in an old folks home or the psych ward just begging to be set free. You are in your crib screaming, crying, gritting your vocal chords. Now i should back up and say that we have tried this with you once before and we failed miserably. We had decided to try it last week at the advice of several friends and "professionals" who suggested that for our own sanity and yours, we give it a go. Well, a go we gave it, but after 2 hours of non-stop wailing, we caved. Not sure what we did--I think we just took you out of the crib and I fed you and then you were so exhausted that you fell asleep eating and were knocked out til 5 or 6. Dad and I have stopped keeping track of the time you fall asleep and wake up each night. At this point it is just a blur. We talk about it everyday. I'll call dad at work and go, "So what time did he get up?" and he'll say, "Uh, two?" "No I think it was more like 4," I'll say. "I don't know," he'll say, "it's all a blur." Still, we have the same conversation everyday regardless, the same way we have the same conversation about what we are going to have for dinner, well knowing that is it going to be salad.

Anyway, we just went in, reassured you that we love you and that we are right here for you and that you need to go to sleep, to which you responded with more screaming. We almost caved, but decided to give it 10 more minutes. Again. A week has gone by nearly since we tried the first time we tried this. We never in a million years took ourselves for the "Cry it Out" types, being more the "give him whatever he wants" types. And it's killing us. But lately the lack of sleep is becoming serioulsy painful for both of us.

Oh my god! SIlence. You are quiet. Are you asleep? Did it work? In the middle of a loud tantrum of a cry, you just stopped. Like this. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!! AAAAAAaaaaaaaaa----------"

Dad just looked at me and said "keep your fingers crossed." Done. Tick tick... wow, still quiet. The calm, the relief. The ocean waves coralling you further and further to sleep (we have one of those sound machines from Radio Shack that I bought years ago when living in Uptown and the noise and drunks were so loud I needed to hike this thing up full blast). Okay... you are still quiet. Now I am worried that you are not okay. They say that sometimes babies when crying it out, cry so hard they vomit. Dad says he is sure you are okay. I asked. I had to.

You had another big HUGE thing happen today. You took the pacifier. Seriously. You have been avoiding this for months (well, the 7 that you have been alive), spitting it out like how dare we. But today, after you finished your gourmet egg yolk and sweet potatoes mixed in to fresh boob milk, you started fussing so I decided to offer you one (since they hang on the hooks on the kitchen, little icons of babyhood that we someday hope will be used though long ago gave up the idea). Well, I dont' know what I was thinking other than I am going to get these dishes done while you are still in that chair, Jude. So I went and offered you the thing and you took it. I think you liked---

HA! Success! Dad and i just went and checked in on you and you were sound asleep, flung across the crib the oppsoite way you usually do. It looked like you were in the middle of playing "Twister," which in a sense, I bet you were.

Anyway, you took the paci. Big day, Jude.

Given the success of you falling asleep on your own (hooray!!!! 'raaaaaaaaaaaaa!), I am going to take my pill and head to bed. But i will tell you one more thing. Dad and I are so very pround of you and we let you cry it out because we love you and feel it's time for you to learn these self-soothing skills early on. We do not want you to end up in therapy over this though we are well aware that you may end up there regardless, for other reasons, because, after all, self-reflection is a good thing... but we really want to say how much we love you and that we can never say it enough.

One more thing: Today we bought you a "pen" though we don't like that name because you haven't committed a crime to end up in there, but here's the thing: you are crawling and wandering so much about that we need you to sometimes be safely kept in the pen (it's big; about the same size of the rug) so we can occasionally go to the bathroom or write in your blog, etc. You seemed to enjoy it so far tonight. Okay, I could go on and on, but there will always be more. Like this: Your second tooth is starting to crop up. It reminds me of my carrots in the yard, just out of the ground, which reminds me I have to go check them tomorrow because maybe I can purree some jsut for you!

So dad and I are going to have some ice cream and go to bed. Night night, our sunshine. xo mommy and daddy