Wits' End meet Jill, Jill - Wits' End

Well, I'm officially admitting defeat in the sleep department. I's exhausted. We all are. I just really never knew it could be SO BAD. I didn't expect great sleep, but this? This is pretty ridiculous. Every night we go to bed without knowing how it might go. Will she sleep 20 minutes or 3 hours? Will we be up for an hour in the middle of the night? Twice? Three times? More? And WHEN WILL IT EVER END?

I woke today in a new (worse) place on the subject. I'm officially ready to cry it out. I felt so defeated that I decided to go to Next Months today even though we're a little too old (the group is for 3-6month olds) and I don't normally go to the Tuesday group. I just needed to be around other tired people for a little while. Also, I woke and checked my email to find that two moms in my playgroup with sleep problems have tried some version of crying it out and after less than a week are seeing great results. And? I popped into work yesterday and more than one person mentioned that CIO worked for their kids and that as toddlers they now sleep really well. It was like all the forces were coming together to tell me that now was the time.

I should preface this story by saying that Ann who leads our group is notoriously not in favor of crying it out. The question has been raised before and she normally politely pleads the 5th but also mentions the fact that research has shown that babies under 6 months experience crying as a form of pain, proven by the fact that their cortisol levels sky rocket when crying. Other stats are listed that basically make everyone feel like crying it out is ... mean? At least that's how I've interpreted it before. Hence my hesitancy in the past.

But today I didn't care. I started the group out by telling everyone how bummed out I was about the whole thing and asked about Ferber's book on CIO. And WEIRDLY Ann gave a fairly different response than has been given in the past. Maybe it was the resolve with which I stated our current state (bad) and the fact that Edie is now past 6 months. I don't know. But she basically talked about how Ferber is one of the only sleep authors out there with super legit credentials (head of peds sleep lap at prestigious university, respected neurologist, only sites specific stats from actual research and real study participants, etc) and that his new edition is much "gentler" than the old one.

So I bought the book. And read the first few chapters. And DUDE. I think he wrote this book about Edie. Unfortunately, the book is making me realize all my fears - that essentially this is a problem that Jeff and I have greatly contributed to (unknowingly of course) and that we have a VERY unpleasant (but necessary) week or two ahead of us. We won't start until we've read the whole book and have a real plan in place, BUT I already feel that I can see a small beacon of hope ahead. A teeny, tiny pinprick of light seen through a giant messpile of a hallway that will involve listening to Edie cry. But at least it has documented success in a research setting, and it seems very comprehensive. It's not just about letting her cry for hours on end - there is some soothing, contingency plans, nap strategies and all sorts of other fun stuff... And I've decided to document it here once we start. Because I'm sure you're all very concerned with the minutia of our sleep patterns here at the Culver abode.