Ferberization: Night 2 and Day 2

Last night was hard, even though Olivia went down easy at 6:30. Between 10:30 and 11:30, Olivia made a few noises and I thought she was going to get up and cry. She didn't, but I didn't go to sleep because I was waiting for it. I finally laid down at 11:45, and Olivia got up at midnight. I can't remember the exact times because I was already tired from the night before. I do know, however, that I did a 5-minute, then 10-minute, then three 15 minute intervals. The crying was only intense for the first 5-minute interval, and then intermittent for all the rest. She was making some noises still at 1:15, but not crying. I remember looking at the clock at 1:20 before I fell asleep.

Olivia woke next at 5 o'clock, cried for a few minutes, took five ounces of milk and went back to sleep. At 7:19, Ringo barked at the kids walking to the school bus stop. Olivia woke up, but didn't cry. I think she would have slept longer except for Ringo. I think I will put he and Puck in our bathroom at the early morning feeding so as not to repeat that performance.

During the 5 o'clock crying, I decided that tonight Nicholas is going to do the comforting since he is up anyway. I need some sleep.

Today, Olivia took a 35 minute nap at 10:15 and then a 30 minute nap at 2:30. (We had a play-date with two boys down the street whose mom is also a SAHM. The younger boy is exactly Olivia's age, so I hope we get to be better friends. We said we are going to try to do it biweekly.) Those naps weren't long enough and I had to fight to get her to take the second one at all. I ended up letting her cry for five minutes because I couldn't get her to sleep in any of the usual ways--rocking, singing, or swaying. I almost put her in the car seat and drove around, but I decided that I was not going to start that habit as I am trying to break other.

Olivia was exhausted by the end of the day. I put her down at six o'clock because she had been rubbing her eyes since she woke up from her second nap, when I couldn't get her to fall back to sleep. I had to talk to her to keep her from falling asleep with her bottle--she took eight ounces! I put her down drowsy but awake, and she cried pretty hard for five minutes and stood up while she was doing it. Nicholas wasn't home yet. I cried, too. I hate hearing her cry and I have heard it WAY too much lately. I comforted her and resolved to come back in ten minutes. I sat down on the couch and read my book (The Glass Castle) for the book club I joined that meets at the end of the month. Olivia's whimpers died out after three minutes. I read for seven more and then finished dinner. Tonight, I am putting in ear plugs and letting Nicholas do the first wake-up. I am bleary-eyed and don't know if I can make it through another hour of crying. Hopefully there won't be a night wake up, and I can just feed her the early morning bottle. We'll see.

The "reasons" I tried to convince Nicholas with on the first night went something like this. "What if she hurt herself? What if she suffocates? What if she hates me? What if I am scarring her? What if she is really, really hungry? What if she is scared? What if she never stops crying? Surely there is a no-cry method to fix this! I heard about scheduled wakings where you wake the baby up 30 minutes before she usually gets up, then feed her, and then gradually move the time up until she sleeps through the night. It only takes a few months when you start with 2-3 night wakings."

Last night, Nicholas worked and I laid in bed listening, hoping that the crying would stop, and staring at the clock. I hope last night was the hardest.

In order not to be totally morose, here is a picture and a video of Olivia "playing" the piano. We discovered this a few weeks ago, and she loves to "bang, bang, bang"! Considering the state of rest Olivia and I were in, we really did have a good day!