asteroid B612

Leave to cry for an hour? Whatever! I couldn't have done that either. Letting Livia cry for 20 minutes was brutal enough for me -- I can remember going for a late night drive around the neighborhood just because I was about to go nuts by Minute 18. Whatever you do, make sure you and Chris agree beforehand.

Happy five months, Ellis! You sure are a cutie.

yeah it's tough. have you thought about incrementing? 5 minutes tonite, 10 minutes tomorrow, 15, etc... I had to be the bad cop on this one, and we would watch the clock like a hawk, but it worked eventually.

this may be a little too T on the tulip, but I think Caleb figured out if he cried he could get what he wanted (although it wasnt what he needed), and we had to teach him that wasnt the case.

whatever you do (or dont do) you'll all get there eventually, and this will be a fuzzy and even pleasant memory.

Kate was a squirmer and sleeping in the infant car seat for several months was really good for her until she had the self control to stop moving. She is still a perpetual motion machine by day, but she knows that when it's time to sleep, she needs to be still or else she keeps herself awake moving around. She didn't get that for quite some time!

We never ever let Kate cry it out and now we just set her (standing up) in her crib and she lays herself down and goes to sleep and rarely wakes until morning... she didn't do that at five months, but she did certainly more than half of the time at night by seven or eight months and increased steadily to being an independent sleeper by a year. She had a routine and knew that we would come if she needed us. I think every kid and every family is different and requires different things. When Kate cries now, there's ALWAYS a legitimate reason (Pain, hunger, thirst and dirty dipes are legitimate in my book). *shrug*

I guess "crying-it-out" can have many shades of definition, too. For me, it means shutting the door for an hour and leaving child to wail until exhausted he'll go to sleep.

I'm not one to go jumping up everytime Ellis wimpers. If he wakes up too early and is fussing in bed, I'll wait to see if he can go back to sleep (I'm still waiting. hasn't happened yet), usually what happens is that he'll quiet down and start talking to the winnie-the-pooh mobile. That's fine by me. And in the respect at least he's learning that it's okay to be alone. (mastering the skill of modern personhood? *grin*)

So he probably does cry for 5 or 10 mins here or there. The other day I was so tired and frustrated. It was noon and I hadn't eaten a thing, I hadn't showered, and felt like crying, so I put him in his bed, and took a fast shower and grabbed a banana. It might have been 12 mins max, and he cried the whole time, but then I was in a better position to take care of him.

I guess I'm just trying to say that I'm not against leaving him to cry here and there for short amounts of time. It's the abandonment principle of crying-it-out that I can't stand.

I hear ya, but I wouldnt necessarily call it "abandonment." if you went out for coffee for an hour then yes. :-)

I thought breastfeeding to sleep was a big "no-no" early on. I was told that it makes for "bad habits." But then I learned about CCK and tryptophan in breastmilk, and how they are natural sleep inducers. So, I figured, it seems like having a warm bellyful of milk just might be part of how God designed it. . . *grin*

I know there is a point at which nursing to sleep isn't the answer. But sometimes, I think, it is the best way to help a baby transition to sleep.

And although I haven't tried it, BadgerMum *swears* by foot massages with a little lavendar oil, especially for toddlers.

You and Chris agreeing on how to handle it is the key.

Lavendar oil is fabulous. An oil burner or a drop on the crib sheets is nice. Or maybe a little in bath before bed. Not only does it calm baby, but Mum, too. :)

Five months is too early to worry about sleep training, I think. We used Jodi Mindel's book - sort of a more flexible Ferber that we could stand to do.

Don't try to sleep train over the holidays - travel will undo it anyway, we found.

MP

Edith Schaeffer wrote about one of their girls waking up when she was a toddler and gettng up to play. The family would be alerted when BANG! the wooden blocks hit the wood floor! The solution they finally discovered was covering her very snugly at night, ao that when she started to wiggle to semi-consciousness, she would find resistance on the way and go back to sleep. It worked.
I am not not suggesting this, but I thought I might warn you, but I spanked you for the first time when you were 6 months old! Okay, you all can die of shock. You could pull yourself up in your crib and you knew full well what you were doing. So well, that when you saw me coming you flopped down when you saw me coming after a couple of spanks. It is hard sometimes to know what to do that gives Ellis security and yet let him learn to live in the world he has got to live in. Deaf people don't have an in-the-house voice. One of the mappers at Cono told me that they worked at a deaf village for a while and it was VERY loud! The Bible tells us, though, that if we lack wisdom, to ask God for it, and he will give it freely. You might as well add, at the time you need it,too.

Hey, very interesting post.

My written English is not so good so I write in German:

"Lieber den Spatz in der Hand, als die Taube auf dem Dach."

Yours sincerely
Köln