The night I did a cry-it-out and failed
It was around 3:45am when Lil’ Cub cried for the third time that night. I had just put him in his crib ten minutes ago, after nursing and changing his diaper. Perhaps the diaper change had roused him more than I wanted it to. I found him standing and bouncing against the crib rails, peering at me through his tears.
After holding him for a bit and putting him back in his crib, I lay on the futon next to him and pretended to sleep because sometimes that works in conveying that he needs to do the same. He fussed and tossed for a while, standing and sitting and rolling repeatedly to find a comfortable sleeping position, but he didn’t like any of them and started crying more with each failed attempt. I tried soothing him back to sleep, but he was already in a hysterical crying mode and kept arching his back while I tried to keep him from propelling himself out of my arms; it occurred to me that whatever I was doing wasn’t helping, so I decided to try to let him cry it out.
I left the room, closed the door, lay on the living room couch. I listened to his bloodcurdling screams, to him bumping his head against the crib (or the wall?), my heart racing with adrenaline the entire time. I checked on him, but he was still going strong, so I left again. The salmon pink light of dawn was starting to stream through the blinds. I continued to listen to those pitiful howls until I could no longer stand it. When I went in, he was hanging weakly with one arm onto the crib rail, still screaming. The rest of his body was limp with exhaustion, his hair was drenched in sweat, his voice was cracked and hoarse. I felt so guilty at that moment, I could hardly breathe; I scooped him up and whispered a hundred reassuring things to him until he fell asleep sobbing in my arms. It was 5:15am.
It’s now 7:30am and I’m awake despite an exhausting night. Besides feeling like I tortured my child and betrayed his trust in me, I feel a nagging sense of failure - failure to get Lil’ Cub to fall asleep on his own, failure to consistently carry out the cry-it-out. I probably would have been more successful if I had just let him cry without intervening. Why did I have to go in and pick him up or check on him? So many moms have been able to go through with it; was I just not strong enough?
The more I think about it, though, the more I realize it’s not that I’m too soft to do a cry-it-out, but that I don’t believe in the method enough to be consistent in executing it. After trying it out, I still stand by my initial thoughts about the cry-it-out, and I have to constantly remind myself that it’s ok to have my own beliefs and personality that don’t quite mesh with this style of sleep training.
To moms who are going through or planning to go through sleep training, I hope you have a better experience than mine. My two cents: prepare for it to take longer than you think (Lil’ Cub cried for 1.5 hours and still didn’t fall asleep!), and if you truly believe in the method, try to resist the urge to pick up your baby. It’s like when Orpheus looked back at Eurydice while they were leaving the underworld. Once your baby knows you’re coming back for him, it’s game over. But you know what? I’m ok with that.
