Cry it Out-2nd Night

Yesterday I posted how hard the 1st night of crying it out with Owen was on facebook. Some ladies told me about a book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby. I immediately downloaded the book on my Nook and read like a madwoman. I knew some of the basic stuff but I liked how the author used science to back up his claims. What I learned (that I sorta intrinsically knew) was the by going to soothe Owen every so often, I was reinforcing his crying behavior. Duh! I did study Behaviorism in college. What's wrong with me? Well, when it comes to parenting I forget all that professional stuff. I just want to soothe my crying baby! Anyway, I came to the knowledge that for Owen's sleep problems to improve, we needed to use the extinction method. The extinction method is where you ignore the behavior (crying) and eventually the behavior will stop. That means no going in to soothe or check up on Owen :( I asked Josh to check in on him every once in a while to make sure he didn't get a leg stuck between the slats in the crib or pull the blanket over his face.

Well, the night was definitely better. He softly cried for 10 minutes when falling asleep, woke an hour later and cried for 15 minutes. Woke 4 hours later and I fed him after which he cried for 5 minutes. Then he woke up 4 hours later and cried on and off for an hour. Finally slept another 90 minutes and then up for the day at 6:30. Not bad I'd say. Going from waking 8-10 times a night, 3 isn't bad at all! I want to get him down to getting up once a night for a feed. Nursing babies can't go 12 hours without eating in my opinion.

Nap time today has been a different story. He cried for the majority of his first nap time. He's laying down right and now and crying on and off although I KNOW he is tired.

I hate this whole thing. I HATE hearing my baby crying. AND I especially hate knowing that it's for me. All I'd have to do is pick him up and he would stop crying UGH! But I know the only way to get Owen sleeping better is to allow him to cry. I tried gentler methods for weeks and nothing else has worked.