The Score is Tied

Campbell - 1. Travis and Sara - 1.

This is the score as of last night. Tonight, Travis and I are going to make every effort to put us up a point. What is the game? Trying to make Campbell go a whole night without waking up to be rocked back to sleep by Mommy and Daddy.

I have bragged and bragged over the past few months about what an amazing sleeper we have. Oh, my sweet baby sleeps for 12 hours straight without a peep. Oh, my little angel is such a good sleeper, we are so lucky. Well...she is sweet, she is an angel, and we are very lucky. But good sleeper...no longer!!! My bragging has totally backfired! When am I going to learn to keep my mouth shut when the going is good???

I have mentioned before how her new ability to stand up was interfering with her sleep (and ours). It has snowballed and we are now in the middle of a nighttime battle with Campbell. She wakes up, as we all do during the night. But most of us roll over, adjust the covers, and go back to sleep. Not our precious Campbell! These days, she sits ups, maybe even stands up. Then she's awake and wants to be held. Let me correct that. Then she's awake and demands to be held.

I know you shouldn't rock a baby in the middle of the night because they get used to it. But we have been doing that when she wakes up because it's easier on us. We bought an amazing rocker for her room that is so comfy cozy (mistake #1). We should have put a hard, old rocking chair in there so we wouldn't be tempted to cuddle. When she cries, we have two options: (1) sit in the cozy rocker and rock her to sleep, probably drifting to sleep ourselves in the process, or (2) listen to her wail on the monitor. She doesn't cry herself to sleep, either. That's what the books say to do. We've tried that. We'll check on her, let her know we are there, make sure she's safe, and then leave her to "cry it out." She cries alright, but there's no "crying it out." The crying escalates to a deafening level and instead of tiring her out, it gets her more wound up. So we are forced to lie awake in bed and listen. Selfishly, we'd rather just hold her, soothe her quicker, and go back to bed. Well, that plan has afforded us a little more sleep but Campbell has caught on. It's become a nightly routine now for her to wake up a couple of times and cry until she's rocked back to sleep. We've decided to nip this in the bud before this middle of the night rocking routine gets worse than it already is!

Last night, Campbell won the first time she woke up. I started rocking her at 1:45 a.m. I woke up a little disoriented at 3:15, still in the chair in her room. I was able to gently lay her down and escape back to the comfort of my own bed. Just an hour and a half later, she woke up again. This time, we were on a mission to NOT get her out of the crib. She cried and fussed and screamed and wailed and whimpered for 45 minutes. Most of that time, I stood over her crib and rubbed her back. (Travis came to help, but it really is a one-person job. I sent him back to bed since he has to be coherent during the day at work). When she'd sit up, I'd lay her back down which REALLY aggravated her. I had to be touching her, and she had to be able to see me. There was no sneaking out. Eventually, she fell asleep sitting up against my arm, with me leaning all the way over the crib. Remember, the mattress is in the lowest position. And remember, I'm only 5'2". This is NOT an easy position to hold, especially not at 5 o'clock in the morning. But I proudly walked out of her room (OK, limped out, due to my sore back) at 5:30 a.m. with her sleeping peacefully, scoring one point for Team Mommy and Daddy. Then she slept until almost 7:45 which was nice, considering what we'd been through during the night.

Tonight will be a new challenge I'm sure. It's so hard to see her cry knowing that all she wants is to cuddle with us. Our pediatrician and our parents have assured us this is a normal stage of development. She is getting older and as she wakes up, she's crying for us to come rescue her. As opposed to a newborn who just cries because, well, that's what babies do. On top of that, we know she's teething, and we know she likes to try out her new trick of standing up. But we know it's best for her to learn to sleep by herself, unassisted. Wish us luck as we go to battle tonight! I'm feeling confident right now that we can try to keep her in the crib again tonight. But ask me again at 3 a.m. when the alternative is sleeping in that cozy chair with her...