The Family *roll

The other night, things hit something of a breaking point: Ellie woke up for something like the third time after a mere 45 minute stretch in the middle of night and would not be soothed back to sleep. What was most striking about the 40 minutes or so Em and I spent trying to settle her back down was simply how little we were doing for her. She was “boob crazy” with Em (kicking, biting, writhing) and just plain old crazy with me. We were both at the end of our rope so I suggested (here it comes) that we let her cry it out. Those three words evoke a lot of emotions in people. But it made a lot of sense for us under the circumstances. First, we weren’t exactly providing her with a lot of comfort. Second, Ellie has cried it out before, viz. in the car, when there’s really no other option but to let her cry. So the idea that we were doing something completely new is a red herring.

We put her down and enjoyed, well watched, an episode of Mad Men (at 4.00am). Ellie has two kinds of cry. Her distress cry, which we basically never hear, comes out when she’s, well, really distressed. Her other cry, with accounts for about 98% of crying is a fussy, more protest-y, cry. We heard that cry, on and off, for about 40 minutes, and then…silence. She was asleep.

We resolved to do the same thing last night. We did our usual nighttime ritual, concluding with Emily breastfeeding Ellie. But instead of feeding Ellie to sleep and waiting some length of time before moving her to the crib, Em put Ellie down drowsy, but awake. We turned on the monitor and waited for the worst. But it never came. Ellie squawked, and really just squawked, off and on for 20 minutes. And then she slept. When she woke up for her next feeding, Em did the same thing. This time, Ellie protested for no more than two minutes before falling asleep.

So this is the way things go from now on. Everyone slept much better. And, contrary to Emily’s fears, Ellie continues to give us big smiles when she wakes up. We’ll let you know how it develops.