Was it C who had to cry it out or me?  Both, I think.

I finally decided that I need to let C cry at night.  I had fought it and hated the thought and was determined that he needed to feel like I respond when he was sad, etc.  I had thought that I would never let him cry for more than 15 minutes.  It finally got to the point where he was waking up 1 to 3 times a night and we couldn’t get him back to sleep without rocking him or nursing, which would completely interrupt one or both of our own sleep cycles, not to mention his.

I have read quite a bit of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and it stresses the importance of a good night sleep, although it does acknowledge alternate strategies to ‘crying it out’ (CIO), so I’ve known that the goal is even more important for C’s well being than for my own desire for 8 hours, uninterrupted, glorious, delicious and restorative sleep.  I had recently picked up Bringing up Bebe by Pamela Druckerman just for fun.   I do have to note that she makes these expansive claims that suggest that all French babies are well-behaved, independent, and good sleepers.  In a review I read by a Frenchman, he said that it’s not that black and white, that he knows lots of ‘brats’ in France and that her magical cure-all tone is inaccurate.  After that, I expected the book to be anecdotal rather than authoritative and I’ve been pleasantly surprised that she cites reputable studies and sources. One of the first sections is about sleeping.  The French term for sleeping through the night when directly translated is, “Doing their nights.”   French babies often start doing their nights by a month old because from the beginning, the typical French parent waits a few minutes when the baby cries in the night to allow them to self soothe.  The idea is that babies wake up every one to two hours at the end of each sleep cycle, and they need to be shown that they can fall back to sleep on their own.  When a parent rushes in and soothes or feeds them, it trains them to expect this behavior.  The book suggests (by way of other experts) that by 4 months, the short waiting will no longer be effective, and at that point, you’re going to need to let the baby CIO for a few nights to teach them this important skill.  I also have friends who began sleep training (aka CIO) before 3 months and they all have babies who sleep through the night.

As I’ve said, I had decided that CIO is not for me, and that C would just naturally learn to sleep through the night.  Finally, all of the voices in my head (in case you’re wondering, I’m not talking about my own psychosis induced voices that go along with being sleep deprived, at least I’m pretty sure…) started to sound a lot alike in suggesting that I rethink my decision.  They were the voices of the books I’ve read and the friends I have who have babies who sleep through the night.  I also have plenty of friends and acquaintances who feel CIO is not for them, but many of them have much younger babies than C.  I finally made the decision to try it for a few nights and see how it goes. Unfortunately, I timed the decision with my mom being in town for a week, and I didn’t want to wait a week to start.  C has gotten really smart and I worried that every night I continued to reenforce his bad behavior by rocking and feeding at 3 in the morning, the harder the CIO period would be.  I also have to note that my mom starts crying anytime she hears C cry for more than a minute (there was an unfortunate Bagel related incident in November).  The night before I decided to do this was mom’s first night in town.  C woke up at about midnight and mom heard him before we got to the room, and she picked him up to rock him.  When mere rocking wasn’t soothing him, we saw the light go on, and I heard her talking to him.  I didn’t realize what she was doing until I heard a distinct, “Hello, do you like my hat?”  She was reading GO DOG! GO to him with the lights on at midnight.  This may have been what pushed me over the edge to try some sleep training.

I thought that I had sufficiently explained to her that I was going to try to let him cry, that I had been reading, etc and decided the time is ripe to avoid worse habits from forming and that hopefully it would only take a few nights.  That first night he woke up at 4:30 am and cried until about 4:45 when mom went in and picked him up.  Adrian and I were laying in bed, feeling awful for his dispair, and then we heared her go in.  ”She just set us back 2 weeks!”  Says my (not at all dramatic) husband.  So I went into the room, made her put him back down – at which point he wailed – and stepped back out.  I explained to her that we are trying a night with minimal soothing.  She got a little upset but didn’t argue and went back to bed (and put her ear plugs in).  We went back to bed and I cried a bit, because C seemed so upset.  He cried for another 15 minutes and it slowly tappered off to whimpering then sleep.  He didn’t wake up again until 8am.  He never sleeps until 8.

The next night he woke up and cried for 15 minutes before going back to sleep and staying that way for the night.  For the next week, most nights he would wake up once for about 5 minutes.  It turned into a light whimper, and then to just babbling.  After about 10 days, he stopped waking up and we’ve been getting all of our sleep (except when I stay up too late reading) every single night, and I no longer feel like a zombie.

C has had a diaper rash for almost 2 months. Sometimes, it would clear up mostly, and even stay away for a week or so, but it kept coming back. We were at his doctor last Monday for his 9 month visit and the doc said it looked like yeast rash. He told me to buy Lotrimin AF, which is athlete’s foot treatment. So what he was saying is my kid has athlete’s foot of the junk? Athlete’s Junk?

I’ve been using it for a week with no results. We woke up yesterday, and during breakfast C got really cranky and wouldn’t eat. So I took him out of his chair and Husband pointed out that he had poop all over his back. Husband took C in to de-diaper him, while I ran a bath, because it was that bad. So after the bath I realized his little butt was bleeding where the rash is. A friend suggested not using wipes and only using water to clean him after a diaper. Everything I’ve read says yeast needs to breathe to go away. So I decided he can crawl around naked for a little bit. First he peed on the hard wood. Not too bad. I got out the wood cleaning spray and I had to alternately keep C from trying to eat the spray (non-toxic) and get his pee cleaned up. A few minutes later, while I was dusting the living room, I walked through a wet spot on the rug. He’d peed on the rug. I got out the vinegar spray and had to alternately keep C from trying to eat the spray and get his pee cleaned up. I feel like I have a puppy again without the puppy cuteness.

I decided to call the doctor and see if they had additional instructions. She said I’m doing all good things. No wipes, air out as much as possible, and she’ll call in a prescription of 1234 ointment, only available at this mom-and-pop pharmacy (luckily very close). I googled 1234 ointment and found nothing about it, one random message board discussion about diaper rash with a member suggesting they find 1234 cream, no other explanation. At this point, I’m not even sure it’s a real thing. So we went to the pharmacy and they hadn’t gotten to it yet. While we were waiting, the pharmacy cashier proceeded to follow us around the store (for 20 minutes) talking to C and telling him how cute he is, barely acknowledging my presence, as if she was having a conversation with just him. He loved it.

When I got home, I took his diaper off, cleaned him with soap and water, and decided to take him outside in the backyard to give the rash some sun (also suggested for yeast murder). I couldn’t actually get him to sit still on my lap for optimum sunlight exposure, so I decided to nurse. Here I was, sitting in the backyard with a naked baby and my boob out to keep him still long enough to get UV rays to the junk and praying against pray that a.) he wouldn’t pee all over me (He didn’t) and b.) the next door neighbor wouldn’t walk onto his back deck (He didn’t). I took him in to administer the ointment, which has to be spread all over, front and back and ‘covered’ with vaseline. This is no small feat, because keeping him on the changing table for more than 30 seconds is like wrestling an alligator. It took 5 minutes, most of the time with him screaming while I held his legs up in the air and nearly dangled him to get the crap on his butt.

I’ve been really into “Draw Something” on the iPad this week. If I were to get “Wrestling an Alligator” as a word, this is what I would draw.

A little later, I was again letting him crawl around naked and I knew Husband was almost home. C likes to stand up against the front glass door and greet Husband when he gets home. This time Husband gets more than he bargained for: C, naked as a jaybird, pounding on the front door in excitement to see his Daddy. He walked in the door and asked me, “Do you think this is appropriate?” I think that anything that keeps C entertained at the end of this long, tiring, alligator wrestling day is absolutely one hundred percent appropriate. Who cares if our neighbors think we’re WT?

Luckily, I had to run off to yoga and Husband was in charge of the before-bed alligator wrestling.

Today, I’m watching a friend’s kiddo, so this morning when she brought him over, I explained why C was naked. She glanced over at him and said “Yeah, I think he’s splashing in his pee right now.” I looked over and sure enough, he’s in the corner, sitting in a puddle of his own urine and pounding it with an open hand to make it splash everywhere. I told her that I’d do my best today to make sure he doesn’t pee on her son.

…on my car, this is what it’d be

I know that the work I did and extremely awesome circumstances made it possible, and I believe it is every bit as much of an accomplishment as marathons (26.2 stickers), half marathons (13.1 stickers), and letting people know where you live or vacation.   I also want to add that having a sticker that would just say “CB” would be awesome, too, because if you’ve brought a child into the world, whether by drug-free-old-fashioned-birth, epidural-old-fashioned, epidural-and-narcotic-pain-medication-old-fashioned, epidural-and-narcotic-pain-medication-and-tranquilizer-old-fashioned, epidural-and-cabernet-old-fashioned, cesarian-birth, or even jump-on-a-plane-and-pick-up-your-baby-after-someone-else-gave-birth-birth, you deserve a sticker for your car.  For making it through the numb first three weeks where you feel like your world has been picked up by the hand of God and twisted like a rubik’s cube (or was that just me?), for making it through the first fever and for constantly (or occasionally) worrying that something you are doing may be permanently damaging this baby/child/teenager, whether it’s feeding him food in the wrong sequence, letting him cry himself to sleep, making him get back on the bike that just flung him off, grounding him for not telling you where he’s going to be even though he wasn’t doing anything bad… and for all the things I don’t know yet because C is only 7 months old.  Anyone who has done / is doing this gets a sticker, too.  But this one is mine and I would wear it proudly… if I didn’t think other people would think I’m bragging or that I’m judging people who didn’t do it this way.