Night 1 of Cry-it-Out

Well, its been a rough week in the Chilicki household... Jack has had his first double ear-infection. He's feeling much much better the past couple nights, but he's been on antibiotics for 4 days now. The first night was rough... we're talking waking up screaming as often as a 1-week old, crying so hard he threw-up... twice. It is heart breaking to not be able to help your baby while he's in pain.

Since he's feeling much better and nearing his 6-month "birthday" we've decided to work on self-soothing. As I type this my son is crying in the other room trying to go to sleep. Our pediatrician said if he wasn't sleeping through the night at 6 months we'd have to work on it for his emotional development. The way she said to do it was each night for a week give him an hour and fifteen minutes allowing him to cry-it out. After the first fifteen minutes, we are allowed to go in and comfort him, without picking him up, by patting him and telling him that we'll come and get him in the morning. She mentioned that he will get louder after hearing our voices but that we can leave the room for the remaining hour. This is repeated for 7 nights, but our doctor advised that usually within 2 or 3 days he'll be able to go to sleep on his own and if he wakes in the middle of the night he should be able to get back to sleep.

As terrible as it is to listen to your baby cry after our first fifteen minutes we realized that he's just mad, not scared or hurt. We know that he is fed, clean, and safe... and very sleepy. After going through the ear-infection, when he had to cry himself to sleep because we couldn't do anything for him, that he can do it.

This night it took just under 20 minutes before he was asleep.

I'll try and update every night on our progress... since I'll have roughly an hour and fifteen minutes each night.