Cry-It-Out? More like SCREAM it out...

It's a vicious cycle that most new parents know well. Baby doesn't get a good night of sleep (for whatever reason be it teething or upset stomach or too excited developing a new skill or fill in the blank with just about any reason you can possibly think of), so baby is tired and cranky which leads him to not not go down for a nap or to take a super short one, which leads him to be more tired and more cranky which leads him to not go down or sleep well during the next nap, which leads to even more overtiredness and crankiness which leads to fighting bedtime and waking up throughout the night which leads to.... you see where I'm going here? AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH F#$#@%#@$@&^!*@&#^$*&^!*@&#!!!!!!!

This has been going on for the past 3 nights/days. I am so so so tired. Like, reminiscent of the first few weeks of motherhood tired. To make matters worse I was so tired and cranky yesterday that I broke down and had a tall iced coffee from Starbucks at 4pm. Whoops. Of course I was tossing and turning not able to fall asleep til like 3am. That's what happens when you average one cup of coffee every 6 months for the past year and a half. It hits you hard!

For several days now (or weeks? i've lost track of time...), Kenzo will fall asleep while nursing, I'll transfer him to his crib, and he'll wake up crying about 20-30 minutes later. This happsn for most naps during the day, and also every bedtime. I always give it a few minutes because very very rarely he'll settle himself down. But usually it escalates to the point of hysterical screaming/crying and I go rescue him until I can go lie down to go to sleep together. Last night we were so frustrated we decided to try the "Cry It Out" method. We let him scream for 5 minutes (ok, I caved at 3 minutes) and I went in there to just reassure him that I'm here, quietly. That didn't do a damn thing to calm him down. He doesn't seem in pain, he's not tugging at his ears or curling his legs up or anything. But it is literally dinosaur blood curdling screaching. Like, I worry he's going to damage his vocal cords! No joke!! So finally I picked him up and like a light switch all the screaming and huffing and puffing stopped. Amazeballs. WTF dude!!! Is he faking? Manipulating? Experiencing honest to goodness traumatizing levels of separation anxiety??? Being haunted by some super evil poltergeist when I'm not in the room???!!! I put him back down, with a pacifier, and he started screaming immediately. I left the room, gave it 5 minutes, went back in. Same old same old. Finally gave up and went back to the old routine - all 3 of us just went to bed together. Hmph.

I think he finally passed out around midnight last night, and woke up twice in the night. This morning he woke up at like 6:30am flipping around, cooing, crying, kicking me in the boob. I laid there with him for almost an hour thinking he would fall back asleep. Instead he finally started crying, so we got up. I was holding him in my lap and he just passed out, drool and all! Poor guy is so tired!!! Mommy too....

The "cry it out" method is very controversial. Some people say "If it doesn't feel right, it probably isn't". And, you know, it really doesn't feel right, letting your child scream and cry and sound so terribly sad!! But what also doesn't feel right is knowing my 7 month old baby can't go to sleep or fall back asleep by himself. We're not going to be able to drop everything and go to sleep with him every damn time. If I knew this was a phase that would end organically in a month or two, I'd just deal with it, and try to enjoy the extra cuddle time. But I worry that as long as we let him call the shots it's going to be worse and worse and before we know it we're going to have a kindergartner who is still sleeping with us and is crying and having tantrums every day when we drop him off at school.

OMG TELL ME WHAT TO DO!!!! WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

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