{"id":2953,"date":"2014-01-23T08:47:18","date_gmt":"2014-01-23T13:47:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/?p=2953"},"modified":"2014-02-09T21:45:00","modified_gmt":"2014-02-10T02:45:00","slug":"working-it-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/2014\/01\/23\/working-it-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Working it Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Honeybun (ah, my sweet little Honeybun\u2026) was a baby, the \u201ccry it out\u201d method was a mystery to me.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t that I was against it, per se, it was that I couldn\u2019t see a need for it.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t understand why\/when\/where\/how it could be necessary.\u00a0 It\u2019s not that I judged parents that used it, I just couldn\u2019t see how it would ever benefit me in my life.<\/p>\n

\"DSC05023<\/a> \u00a0Fast forward 2 years and say hello to Sugarplum, my vivacious screamer (see\u00a0“The Scream Heard Around the Neighborhood”<\/a>).\u00a0 My poor little baby who (we later found out was probably in massive amounts of pain) would lay around screaming when she was tired.\u00a0 Rocking, cuddling, feeding, patting, NOTHING worked to calm her.\u00a0 Hours upon hours of screaming until she would pass out from exhaustion and I would cry in frustration. This is when I saw the benefit of \u201ccry it out\u201d.\u00a0 I could try to comfort her and feel my heart crack, break and shatter into a million pieces while I was unable to calm her or I could leave her.\u00a0 The result was the same, she cried until she exhausted herself, but the difference was how it affected me.<\/p>\n

When I would try to calm her it would somehow upset her and prolong the ordeal.\u00a0 It would make me feel inadequate as a mommy and like a failure to my child.\u00a0 She would cry for hours sometimes as I tried to soothe her.\u00a0 If I would just let her be, she would usually be asleep by the time I was out of the shower (I\u2019ll admit I took some really LONG showers in those days).\u00a0 She eventually came around, we got her the care she needed for the pain she was most likely having and she learned to put herself to sleep and is now the most cuddly three year old I\u2019ve ever known.<\/p>\n

\"SONY<\/p>\n

Fast forward 3 more years and we\u2019ve come full circle.\u00a0 Doodle is now in the same boat, but in a different way.\u00a0 He will easily be soothed at the breast or with rocking but he immediately wakes and cries when you stop.\u00a0 The past two nights, it\u2019s taken 2 hours for him to settle back down in the wee hours of the morning.\u00a0 The first night, hubby and I took turns comforting and rocking him (see\u00a0“Teething Troubles”<\/a>) but last night I just didn\u2019t have it in me.\u00a0 I was too cold, tired and emotionally exhausted to stand over him in his bed and rock him back to sleep.<\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t crying, screaming or hysterical, he was just whining but it went on and on for almost two hours.\u00a0 Hubby and I each went in a time or two to re-wrap him (we don\u2019t swaddle him tight anymore, but still loosely wrap him as a matter of routine to indicate it\u2019s sleeping time and provide warmth) and turn on his lights and sounds machine.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t use the term \u201ccry it out,\u201d we prefer \u201cwork it out.\u201d\u00a0 For me, a child crying makes me think of unmet needs, a child who needs something so to \u201ccry it out\u201d seems, to me, like a child\u2019s needs are being neglected.\u00a0\u00a0 When we leave our children to \u201cwork it out\u201d it is after their needs have been met.\u00a0 They\u2019re fed, clean, dry and comfortable and are being left to self-soothe.\u00a0 It\u2019s not my ideal to ever listen to my children cry (baby or 5 year old) but we have decided sometimes it is the better option.\u00a0 My back will not take 2 hours leaning over the crib side nor will my mood take 2 hours of being frustrated with my baby.\u00a0 \u201cWorking it out\u201d is a coping mechanism for both me and my baby.<\/p>\n

I hope the nights get better with Doodle and we go back to a full night\u2019s sleep for everyone but for now, we\u2019re doing the best we can in the way that is best for us.\u00a0 I\u2019ve learned to not to feel guilty for the parenting choices I make or to worry what others might think because the most important thing is that every decision I make comes from a truly loving place with my child\u2019s well-being in mind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Honeybun (ah, my sweet little Honeybun\u2026) was a baby, the \u201ccry it out\u201d method was a mystery to me.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t that I was against it, per se, it was that I couldn\u2019t see a need for it.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t understand why\/when\/where\/how it could be necessary.\u00a0 It\u2019s not that I judged parents that used […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-mommys-life","category-baby-business","category-family-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2953"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3115,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2953\/revisions\/3115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}