Ryan and Juliet

Seriously, who ever coined that term clearly never had a baby.  For the past month and a half I have desperately been trying to get my babies on a schedule and in doing so, trying to get them to nap.  A true nap, in my book, is one that lasts at least 1 hr.  My babies, however, seem to prefer the 20 minute cat naps.

I should first probably explain how I rate my day.  It boils down to the following:

• Did the babies go poop?
• Did the babies finish their bottles?
• Did the babies nap 2x for at least 1hr each?
• How much did the babies cry?  This is often determined by how well we did on the first 3 bullets.

We’ve tackled the first two bullets and have those somewhat under control.  Next, it was time to work on the napping.

First I tried the swing for one baby and my arms for the other, switching back and forth so each baby got to sleep in my arms (this seemed to be the preferable method).  Aside from the extroadinary amount of boucing I had to do to get the baby in my arms to sleep, that worked pretty well.  That was, of course, until the baby in the swing woke up crying.   Remember the 4th bullet?  Keeping the crying level as low as possible?   Well, one baby crying is better than two.   So when the baby in the swing woke up, I had to put the baby in my arms down.  End result… two babies crying.  Oh, but I sooooo loved to have them fall asleep in my arms.  They were so precious and I cherished those moments.  I soon realized, though, that the lap-swing scenario wasn’t going to work.  Poo.

Around their 3 1/2 month mark I tried to put Juliet in her crib to let her cry it out.  This is known as the Ferber method.  I learned about this through my Dr. Spock book and thought I’d give it a try.  So I put her down like it said and left the room.  As soon as I left, Juliet cried and it became increasingly worse.  At the same time, I ran downstairs to see what the good ‘ol internet had to say about this.  The first article I came across was from the following babycenter.com post:  Are we damaging our baby by letting him cry himself to sleep?.  After reading that “when infants are left to cry themselves to sleep, they are forced to conclude that they are not lovable enough to engage their parents’ desires to comfort them” and “if they actually stop crying, it is because they have abandoned all hope that help will come”, I immediately ran and grabbed Juliet.  I decided I would not Ferberize them.

Next I tried putting each baby in their own swing.  This seemed very promising, but still I sat next to them singing and shushing until I too was crying and begging for it to end.  Once they finally did fall asleep in the swing, it lasted about 30 minutes.

I was giving up hope when Dan suggested putting them in the nursery where it’s dark.  The next day I tried that with Juliet and left with the monitor.  I left and prepared myself for screaming and wailing, but all was quiet.  I questioned whether or not the monitor was working, but it was.   And so she napped!  I was so encouraged and my hopes were restored.  The next day I tried with Ryan and again it worked!  I was delighted!

I thought I was home free.  Then about 4 days after using this new method it started to go downhill.  The crying would start as soon as I left the room.  I’d go back in to talk to them, and sing to them, and shush them but as soon as I left, the wailing would resume.  Yesterday I hit my nadir.  I was so exhausted and begged the nap gods to return to me.  I was at wits end and decided maybe I should just try the Ferber thing again and give them 10 minutes to cry.  I did.  Ryan cried for maybe a minute and was asleep.  Juliet cried for 3 minutes and was asleep.  I know this doesn’t sound like a lot of time, but its a lifetime when you’re listening on the other end of the monitor.  I forced my guilt aside and just waited it out.  It seemed to work.  They napped for 1 1/2 hrs for both naps.  That was today.

So maybe this Ferber guy wasn’t so evil as I originally thought.  On the other hand, I do believe the babycenter article is evil for playing on parents’ guilt that way.   As long as I have met my babies’ needs (tummies full, diaper clean, not sick) then I think I can only be helping them (and me) by letting them cry a little when the end result is sleep.  I clearly was not helping them by continuing to go in there to console and they just ended up crying more and we would all just get increasingly frustrated.

So, are you sleeping like a baby?  I hope not for your own sake!