August 13, 2007

How does "Crying It Out" actually help them to self-soothe???

if Elliot screams blue murder and i go check on him and shhhhh him and lay him back down and tuck him in every 5 minutes or so only to have him pop back up when i start to leave the room and we do the whole thing over again, how does that teach him to self soothe? if he cries himself right out, how is that teaching him anything?

it's been 30 minutes. almost 15 minutes were all out angry screeching, with me going in every 5-6 minutes to re-settle. of course, me leaving again just made him madder. Jay finally came upstairs and made me leave. when i left, the screams had finally died down to moans and fussing. i know his soother is on the floor. i know his little face is all red and his nose is running. i know i just want to be holding him.

but i know that me rocking him to sleep isn't working any more. he wants me to hold him but he's starting to arch away. he wants me there, and doesn't want me to leave. i know me going in after 5 minutes of screaming and picking him up and rocking him again will put him to sleep, but i also know that it only teaches him to scream until he's in my arms.

how does CIO actually teach them to go to sleep? will he get to the point where he will not even bother crying because he knows i won't pick him up and will just lay there until he falls asleep? i know that my 10 year old won't need me to rock him to sleep, so why shouldn't i continue rocking him now, until he's a bit older? he's bound to learn on his own someday - maybe when he can talk and i can reason with him? (yeah, yeah, you can't really reason with a toddler, i know, i know.)

Jay keeps saying he needs to learn, he needs to learn and it's our job to teach him. but how is this working? how is screaming until he gags helping him learn anything?????

i'm drinking wine and crying. my poor little boy. i feel like such a shitty mom. i hate CIO. we've done it before, when he was 7 months or so. i hated every second of it, but it did work well for him. now that he stands up it's added a whole new dimension, and it's worse.



he's crying again....