"How's She Sleeping" Part Two

I should've posted this months ago, because I know you were all hanging on the edge of your seat waiting to hear how CIO worked for us. But in seriousness, someday we will (God willing) have another child and I'll need to remember that IT. GETS. BETTER.

Mamas of babies who sleep through the night, can I get an "Amen"?

We had two really rough nights. REALLY rough. I asked the pediatrician if there was a limit on how long we should let her cry, and she said no "but it's not like they're gonna cry for three hours straight". Obviously, lady, you don't know my kid! 

Night one: down relatively easy, then the first middle-of-the-night waking she cried. And cried. And cried. FOR THREE HOURS. and I finally cracked because oh my god she's going to explode or something so I went in and nursed her. Bad idea, I know, but what could I do, the pediatrician said she wouldn't cry for three hours and THAT LITTLE MONSTER CRIED FOR THREE HOURS?!? Then back to sleep for the rest of the night. No fucking wonder, she wore herself out, I'm sure. 

Night two: Again, down easy. First waking comes and wouldn't you know it, she did THE SAME THING DAMN THING. three hours. How did we get through it? A free white noise app ("white noise lite") on my iPhone, turned up as loud as it would go, and an alarm set in intervals to check the video monitor. And when it hit three hours (really, when it hit two hours and fiftynine minutes because ohmygod icanttakethisonemoresecond) I nursed her again. 

Night three: blah blah blah, wake up, cry for 45 minutes, then back to sleep. Only 45 minutes, you say?! I KNOW!! God bless America, this mess is working. 

Night four: I don't exactly remember all the fine details, but it went something like goodnight London, see you in the morning ... And then we saw her in the morning!! 

Has London slept every night since then for 12 hours straight? No. Because there's evil demons like teething and colds and traveling and any other excuse you could think of whose sole purpose is to fuck with your kid's sleep and ruin your life. And because she's a tiny human, and tiny humans like to mix it up on you just when you think you've got this parenting thing down because they can't have you getting too cocky. But overall, she's a good nighttime sleeper. And we know when there's something legitimately wrong versus when we need to let her "work it out on her own" (it sounds nicer than cry it out) and reset her little system. 

I'm not going to tell you it works for every baby, but it worked for us. I hate hearing my baby cry as much as the next mama but when it comes down to it, something has to give. I don't judge the parents that co-sleep if it gets them and their baby more sleep, and I appreciate the parents that don't judge us for sleep training. We're all just trying to do the best we can for ourselves and our kids, right?