#newparentproblems

how do you feel about the cry-it-out method? joey and i have long been on the fence about this somewhat barbaric approach of accomplishing sleep for henry, and have, up until now, mostly squashed the idea of suffering through the incessant cry-screams from our dearest huckle. although, admittedly, i've always sort of assumed we'd take the plunge eventually. there are several different versions of and philosophies regarding sleep training and i guess you might say we were in the beginning stages of educating ourselves via the google when the dreaded 4 month sleep regression (it's really a thing!) happened in a big way at our house. and you know desperate times call for yada yada, so we ramped up our google searches in the last few days because although desperate may be an enormous stretch here, by now you know that sleep rates super high on my survival necessities list. and lately, because my husband is probably the best there ever was, i've been pulling joey down with me on reallylong nights with henry, and we all know how happy a household can be when mama, daddy, and baby are all exhausted and short tempered. real happy. 

last week was long anyways, but two nights ago poor henry was bright eyed and notevenalittletired from about 10 pm until 4 in the am, leaving his weary parents trading the bundle of joy back and forth in hopes that the next bounce, or feeding, or cuddle would be the magic ticket to dreamland for the entire family. but they never were. until finally joey laid henry in his crib at 4 am, where we let him cry for 20 minutes until he finally fell asleep. that night the family banked a total of four hours of sleep, thank goodness, because another spot of snow fell in the dc area and joey (of course!) didn't have to work the following morning. 

in honor of the previous night from not-heaven, joey and i held an emergency pow wow yesterday regarding the matter of sleep in the larson household, and decided to work on teaching henry to self-soothe (i.e. spend some time crying it out). and in true henry fashion, he spent the day in straight disgust of his parents' new tactics and slept m.a.y.b.e an hour and a half through the day, but laid down for a full night of sleep at 7:30 with very little fuss. at 3:30 am h woke for the shortest of short snacks, then laid right back down to cry for a few minutes until he decided enough was enough and he fell straight to sleep until joey woke him up this morning for daycare. 

i am by no means saying our incredible luck last night means, in any way, that we're back in line for a smooth sail with henry sleep-wise. nor am i saying our (or any) sleep training methods are best - because they're hard! veryveryhard! but we celebrate all minor successes around here, and i wouldn't blame you if you decided to skim-read the next time henrymakesthemamaproud.

here are a few pictures for dessert.

that furrowed brow.
he's always got a thing or two (not nice things) to say when we get too close to bedtime.