If you don't like the answer...

sometimes you just have to stop asking the question.  It is with mixed emotions that I report DH and I have officially not been woken by NB for the last eleven nights now.  Our night-time sleep drama has ended for now, and hopefully a really long time.  (Would forever be unrealistic?) The denouement went something like this...

On September 7th, after a very hard week of NB having worse and worse sleep, (one night he slept only 2 hours and that was in my arms) DH and I were at our wits end.  I felt especially frustrated as I had the added pressure of feeling that "everyone" (whoever that is) expected me to have the solution.  I didn't.  At least I didn't think I did.  So on that fateful Friday night, amid tears of frustration and exhaustion and between cries of an over-exhausted NB, I tried to research ideas, and we tried to discuss options.  I know I've mentioned it before, but it was UGLY. I found a website that promised custom sleep schedules for $150 or so dollars.  Sounded like a deal to me. Amidst all of that, I told DH I thought we had to start putting NB down awake. Neither of us was excited about starting that after our track record for the week, but heck, we couldn't get him to sleep anyway, so we might was well walk away. DH walked upstairs, put NB down, and, low and behold, HE SLEPT!!!   We hurriedly talked about our options, fully expecting NB to wake in 20 minutes.  We decided to start letting him learn to put himself back to sleep by allowing him to cry up to an hour at a time.

So began our progress toward restful nights.  The first three nights were pretty great.  The fourth, a little set back.  I insisted on keeping tabs on NB through the monitor.  I felt I needed to know if my baby was crying at night.  Needed to know how his night was and to make sure he was ok.  So, even though we did not go get him, we were still awakened 2-3 times a night by crying, and still listening to that for up to an hour at a time.  After a week of that, and not needing to go nurse NB in the night, I struggled with letting the monitor go.  I realized the ridiculousness of letting NB's cries wake us if we weren't going to do anything about them, but it was hard to stop listening. Still, I am a practical girl at heart.  DH and I would be better, more patient, parents if we started getting some sleep.  If there was nothing for us to do, I needed to turn it off.  So, on September 14th, I did. I slept closer to the door for a few nights and woke myself often to turn the monitor on when I thought I heard NB's cries.  It was never him...always just something in my head.  (The whistling of our air conditioner intake or air through DH's snoring nostrils)  In the last three nights, I've stopped turning on the monitor at all.

It disturbs me a bit, to realize I will never know when NB starts (started?) sleeping through the night.  For now, I gauge how the night went based on how sleepy and cranky LO is in the morning.  Not a great barometer, but it's all I have.  Of course LO is sleeping on the carpet these days, so he may be cranky for other reasons.  (That's a different story all together)  I've told a few mom girlfriends that I've stopped listening, and I feel a little judged.  In a society where coddling children is the norm, where parents aim to be more like friends than parents, letting your children cry and (gasp) not even listening to it is just not popular.  Maybe I feel judged not because I am, but because I feel guilty.  Letting your children cry is hard.  Not listening is harder in some ways.

I've shared this with DH and he assures me we are doing the right thing. DH points out that: We listened for a week and learned that NB can and does put himself back to sleep.  NB hasn't needed to nurse at night in nearly a month. If either boy was really in trouble, DH would hear (has heard) them (he's closer to the door now) and wake up.  NB is a much happier and more alert baby than he was at the beginning of this month.  He is napping great, and has developed a schedule. All of these facts point to his night sleep being whatever it needs to be.

We just don't know what that is exactly and we've learned to be ok with that.