Cry-It-Out (To Clarify)

It felt irresponsible not to mention that “cry-it-out” isn’t actually plopping your infant in her crib and letting her cry herself hoarse regardless of her needs because, you know, you’ve got shit to do. It's an established sleep training method a la Ferber and the like. Gaia’s had a solid bedtime (within a thirty minute time period) for well over a month. She also makes very clear signs when she’s sleepy such as tugging on her ears and rubbing her eyes. When she shows signs of getting sleepy in the evening we have a solid bedtime routine (bath-massage-book-feeding). With “cry-it-out” that all stays the same I just let Gaia soothe herself to sleep instead of me bouncing/rocking her when it’s all over. Ideally I was planning to go into her room to comfort her every twenty minutes but so far I haven’t had the opportunity (which is a good thing).

For those of you eager for an update, she put herself down for two naps today (her third was in my arms) and is currently asleep in bed without a single wail. I know this could all go sour any minute as babies have a talent for flipping the switch when you’re feeling nice and secure with their routine, but for now G is all about sleep... ahhhhh... glorious sleep.

Cry-It-Out

You may have noticed a distinct lack of posts since I’ve been back in Regina. To blame is the fact that the last three weeks have been filled with tears, nervous breakdowns and only the very occasional glimpse of a light at the end of the tunnel. I mean really, who wants to hear about me curled up in a ball on my bathroom floor weeping because my daughter won’t go to sleep and has gone back in time to be a four-month-old newborn? Anyway, it all came to a head last night when, after trying to get Gaia to sleep for over two hours, I finally succumbed to the lure of “cry-it-out”. I cuddled her until she was calm but awake and then put her in her bed, tucked a blanket around her, told her I loved her and left the room. After a mere fifteen minutes of crying she was fast asleep. It was 10:15pm. The rest of our night looked like this:

10:15pm-11:00pm – Sleep
11:00pm-11:07pm – Eat
11:08pm-11:13pm – Cry
11:13pm-4:56am – Sleep
4:57am-5:05am – Eat
5:06am-5:09am – Mildly Protest
5:10am-8:24am – Sleep
8:25am – Wake-Up Laughing – Eat Breakfast

Did I mention I’m in love with “cry-it-out”? What’s even better is when I got Gaia out of bed this morning I swear she looked proud of herself. The look was all “Geez Mama, this is so much better than you bouncing me while you weep! Clearly I am the Queen of Sleep and now that you've finally let me deal with my shit I am prepared to take over the world.” That being said, there is no way I would have been ready for this before this week. Like a junkie I needed to hit rock bottom before I could let all the attachment parenting stuff go and try a more moderate approach. In fact, I probably would have never considered it if not for my Mommy-friend who struggled for months with her daughter’s sleep habits and has written about it here. She is my personal pioneer in the field of "cry-it-out". She also wrote a post about the notion that letting your child ”cry-it-out” is about teaching them “who’s boss”. I get the impression she finds that as ludacris as I do. In our house one thing is for sure, Gaia is the boss. I’m just the head of continuing education.

Happiness...

... thy name is Jolly Jumper.

Pop Quiz

It’ll be two weeks tomorrow since Gaia and I have been home from Vancouver. In the last two weeks which of the following things have happened?

a) Gaia moved into her own bedroom marking our first night apart. I left both our doors open and slept with my head at the foot of my bed so I could see into her room lest she panic. She didn’t. In contrast I’m not sure I slept a wink.

b) I took Gaia in to get her four-month immunizations. After seeing how wiggly and active my child is the nurse proclaimed “Well it’s a good thing you’re married because I sure can’t imagine taking care of this little one on my own!” Ahem. Perhaps I should have asked if she’d call the embassy in Lima on my behalf.

c) I checked the Immigration Canada website (as I do every Tuesday) for any updates on our case. Not only were there no updates (nor have there been for three months) but the estimated wait time for Peruvian cases has jumped from five to eight months to nine to fifteen. Whoopie!

d) Gaia went from sleeping a successive nine to twelve hours through the night to waking up every hour, on the hour for ten days straight. She also began a campaign to abolish naps and more than thirty seconds of independent play.

e) One sunny morning in a winding Tim Hortons drive-thru line up I finally learned what a “double-double” is. The teenager in the window looked at me like I was crazy as he explained then (judgementally I feel) asked me where I was from.

f) I started a quest to fold one hundred paper cranes to hang from the ceiling in Gaia’s new room. Over fifty cranes in and it started to seem more than a little foolish. The box of cranes in the corner taunts me and guilts me into making ‘just one more’. I should be done by the end of the week.

g) During a particularly hellish night Gaia peed on my bed while getting her diaper changed at 5:00am. Too tired to change the sheets I simply piled towels on the puddle until the urine stopped soaking through and the two of us slept on said towels for the remainder of the morning. For six successive nights I simply added another towel or blanket to the pile to mask the smell of pee and continued sleeping on the soiled sheets. I am disgusting.

h) I joined a gym which (thankthelord) has a daycare. Friday marked the first time I have ever left Gaia in the care of a stranger. After a quick hour of cardio I went to pick her up and found her smiley and nuzzling up against one of the staff who proclaimed “I just love your baby... she’s so sweet and cuddly!” The shock on my face was hard to deny as I coldly responded “Well... that’s lovely for you.” (PS. Have I mentioned my daughter still won’t cuddle with me?)

i) I officially decided that caring for a four-month old is more difficult than caring for a newborn. The honeymoon is over people.

j) All of the above.

Perhaps it goes without saying that the correct answer is j). On the bright side things are looking up. I had a wonderful day visiting with friends at a beautiful farm where Gaia got to catch up with her BFF and meet chickens and horses and sheep and, oddly enough, a llama. When we got home she was in such a great mood she rewarded my weeks of endless patience with her first real giggle. Until now her laugh consisted of a high pitched, open-mouth scream. Tonight she laughed like a big-girl without pause for almost five minutes straight as I pretended to eat her legs. At least somebody thinks I’m funny.

Woof

It's true that I take an exorbitant amount of pictures of my daughter. She's four-months old and there are almost two thousand pictures in my Gaia Favourites folder which accounts for less than half of the total pictures I've taken. Sigh. More ridiculous still is that I feel compelled to post the majority of these pictures on Facebook. I think I have a problem. If I were Facebook friends with myself I'd be seriously annoyed. In fact, I'd probably delete me from my friend list. Still, at least Gaia's a human baby who shot from my loins. If you put me up next to my friend Jaydeen whose dog not only has thousands of headshots, but is also the star of her very own website that includes an increasing number of snazzy videos I look positively sane.

PS. Just kidding Jay. You know I loves me some Keelah Cornbread!

Crisis Averted

Katy (one of my BFFs* who I've written about here) just sent me the following from her BlackBerry:

"Quick, tell people you know where Gaia is or we may have a crisis on our hands!"

This is why I love my friends.

* I used to call my besties BFFs in a way that was sort of tongue-in-cheek but now that Paris Hilton has a monopoly on the name for her never ending serious of reality shows I hate myself a little everytime I use it. ARG.

Her Future's So Bright...

Well... you know...