Cry It Out

This past Friday was Logan's six month check up. He is awesome. He weighs 16lbs 8oz and is almost 29 inches long. He was a trooper for his shoots and developmentally is right on track (rolls over both ways and sits unassisted). The doctor was impressed by his size and that he is a nursing baby. There is still a chance that Bret will have one tall kid :)

When the doctor asked if I had any questions the only thing that came to mind was any tips on getting him to sleep through the night. We talked about the fact that he had an awesome two naps a day schedule and that getting him to fall asleep was no problem at all at night. He just tended to wake up and want to nurse at least twice a night which was exhausting.

The doctor's reply was that he wasn't trying to be mean but it sounded very much like he needed to just cry it out. I am familiar with the cry it out technique also known as the Ferber method. We used it with Emily to get her to lay down at night. After two very rough nights she sleep through the night ever since.

Something in the back of my mind had been telling me this about Logan but since he was in our room and was a baby that very very rarely cried I had been holding out. Hearing those words from the doctor was the push that I needed.

So wasting no time I decided that since Bret was on call this past weekend and would most likely be staying at the hospital anyway we would give it a go.

IT.WAS.AWFUL.

He laid down no problem at 8:30 which is routine for us and slept till 11:30 which is also routine. Only this time I let him cry for 10 minutes and went in to sooth him without picking him up. My presence and lack of nursing only pissed him off. So I decided to just let him cry it out. I sat in the other room and cried too. I told myself that I would give it an hour after that point we would forget sleeping through the night and just keep doing what we were doing. After 50 minutes of crying he passed out cold.

Thinking that he was probably so tired from crying that there was a chance he would sleep through the rest of the night I too went to bed. He woke up again at 3:30 and then again at 5am. Both times crying for at least 15 minutes but then finally falling back to sleep. It was a long restless night.

Night two was better but still hard. He woke up three times and the first time he cried for 20 minutes with each time after for about 10 minutes. Ten minutes doesn't seem like very long but when you are in the same room half asleep it feels like forever.

Night three he woke up twice but only for a few minutes each time.

Last night he sleep from 8:30pm until 5:30 am. Bret and I were shocked. Here is hoping that this is a new trend we can stick to.