Cry It Out

Image by Sam Pullara via Flickr

We have no other recourse.

As much as I talked about how much I hate baby sleep books in the last post, we bought one more. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby by Marc Weissbluth. I know whenever I get a sleep book I am confident and eager to see it work and this one is no different. Except that if this doesn’t work there is seriously nothing more to do.

This is complete and total cry-it-out. Put her in the crib and don’t get her out til morning. We did some practice runs last night and for naps today and the real problem is that the Squeaker doesn’t give up and lay down. Tonight for example. She cried hysterically for 10 mins and since then intermittenly every 5 mins. Why? Because she falls asleep standing up holding on to the crib rails and when she starts to fall she wakes up and cries hysterically again. She just won’t sit down or lay down. And she knows how to. She pulls up and sits back down on her own all the time. The last month we have been showing her how to sit down and lay on her side. But she won’t do it. Ack.

This is what prompted this method of sleep training. Everything that we have tried to teach her how to sleep has been completely ineffective. She still relies on us totally to fall asleep. She’s only going to learn if she does it on her own. Eventually she’ll get so sleepy she’ll fall backward on her bum and hopefully lay down and go to sleep. That or she’ll go crashing into a crib rail which I hope really won’t happen because then we’ll have to start the process all over again.

It’s a little ridiculous how much we have fought this. We have literally tried every play in the playbook. We’ve tried Sears, Pantley, West. All different schools of thought, all different methods and all failures. Ok, we haven’t tried Ferber but at this point we just need this done. The whole gradual thing doesn’t work. It’s been gradual for 9 months.

So here we are. Me glued to the video monitor (which our friend graciously lent us) hoping that the next time O cries she will plunk down on her butt and go to sleep. Kraft coming in and out of his office to look at the monitor. And O so so sleepy fighting a battle she can’t win.

Saint in charge of sleep problems, pray for us.