We are bad parents!

Okay it is official, my hubby and I are bad parents. Friday was my sweet little boy's 9 month well baby check-up. He weighs 20 lbs 7 ozs and he is 30" tall. Yes he is a big boy. At his doctors visit I discussed with the pediatrician that he still isn't sleeping through the night. After examining the boy, he said there was no physical reason why he isn't sleeping through the night. He said it was developmental. A nice way to say that we have not done our jobs as parents and let him figure out how to get himself back to sleep. I asked him if it could be the teething, he said it was doubtful, but if we wanted to blame it on that we could use that excuse until he was about 2 1/2. Yeah the pediatrician seemed to be in an ill mood Friday, he is usually very nice and patient. He really made me feel bad. He said we need to do the cry and wait thing. You know when he wakes up turn down the monitor and let him cry for 10 minutes the first night and then 15 the second night and so on until either he cries the rest of the night or he realizes that we are not coming to comfort him and he goes back to sleep. I told him I did not know if we could do that or not and he said we could do whatever we wanted that it was not his sleep getting disrupted.

So, we are up to 15 minutes now. I guess tonight it will be 20 minutes. Friday and Saturday night went fine, he woke up once each night and we waited and he easily went back to sleep after I nursed him. Last night was a different story, he just could not settle himself back down and go back to sleep. I was up with him from 12:30 am until nearly 3 am. I picked him up and tried rocking him at first, he calmed down and got very still, but would not go to sleep. So I tried to put him back in his crib, MISTAKE! He screamed his head off. I gave him his pacifier and blankie and told him to go night-night. I went back to my room and turned down the monitor. I lay there for a few minutes while he screamed his head off. Of course I could not go to sleep either knowing that he was crying. So I went back in there, this time determined not to pick him up, but to sit with him and maybe he would go to sleep knowing that I was there. I stood by his crib and turned on his aquarium thing and he looked at me and finally closed his eyes. I tiptoed out of the room and crawled back into my bed. 15 minutes later he was crying again. So I waited and waited.

Finaly I went in his room and he was sitting there in the middle of his crib, just wailing. I gave him a pacifier and his blankie and once again turned on the aquarium and stood by his bed. Well, my back was aching and my feet were too, so I sat in the floor by his crib and rested my head on its bars. He lay there for a few minutes and then he was up. He reached out of the crib and grabbed my face and stood up and jumped in the bed a few times. I kept quietly telling him it was time to go to night-night. He would sit down and lean over and lay his head down and still not go to sleep. So at around 2, I laid him down and gave him his blankie and I went back to my bed. I told hubby that he was just going to have to cry it out because I HAD to get some sleep. So after about 20 minutes I could not take it anymore and I got my pillow and headed to the sofa. I thought I would go in there every few minutes and lay him back down and tell him to go night-night. That would eventually work right? Yeah it did after about 3 times. I was finally able to get back in my bed about 3 and he slept until a little after 6. I nursed him and he went back to sleep until about 7:15.

I am trying to cut out the middle of the night breastfeeding. I know that is one reason that he keeps waking up. The doctor assured me that he is not hungry and that he should easily be able to go the 10 hours or so at night without breastfeeding. Anyway so officially I am a bad parent. I just can't stand for my child to cry, and apparently my child knows that. Maybe the good doctors advice on the wait and cry thing will work and I will be getting like 8 hours of sleep real soon. I will let you know.