Day 136 - Let Sleeping Babies Lie Part 3 (conclusion)

Here is the exciting conclusion to the Sleep Wars trilogy: Return of the Redeye.

For those of you who have not kept up with the blog, here's a quick summary of our sleep training with Emma:

Sleep Wars -- Our young heroine, Emma, dreams for the day that she can sleep peacefully. She is guided by an elderly, old, decrepit, ancient sleep master, Lisa-Won-Ton Kenobi. Lisa-Won-Ton's teachings of the Sleep Force is cut short by her untimely death by her nemesis, Darth Ichi.

Sleep Wars: The Emma Strikes Back -- Emma continues her training to achieve mastery of the Sleep Force. She meets up with Lisa-Won-Ton's mentor, Yodrew. The peaceful Sleep Force master tries to calm her cries for sleep by his example of zen-like quiet and happiness. Emma's inability to focus on Yodrew's teachings makes her climactic face-to-face battle with Darth Ichi all the more dramatic when she realizes he could be her...father. Could her future be filled with jazz hands and Broadway musicals? GASP! And now the exciting conclusion...

It has been almost two weeks since we started our sleep training with Emma. Lisa and I decided to let her cry it out, but we would check on her every 15-20 minutes to reassure her that we are never, ever going to pick her up so her crying is fruitless. The first night she cried for over an hour. Then the next few nights she fell asleep with little fuss. Then she cried for an hour again. That was followed by a handful of good nights, followed by more crying. And last night she only cried fifteen minutes and calmed herself to slumber.

I'd have to say that this whole experience has been pretty successful. It hasn't even been two full weeks, but Emma's crying has really cut down. Honestly, it is difficult not to pick up your kid when she's crying and tears are streaming down her beet-red cheeks (literally beet-red because she was eating a can of beets). Drowning out the crying is much easier. All you have to do is shut the door, turn up the television and you're done with that problem.

But Lisa and I agreed that we had to try this cry-it-out method because our nights were slowly becoming non-stop Babyland. Here was our basic problem:

7-8pm: Andrew falls asleep, but Emma is awake.
9pm: Emma falls asleep.
9-10pm: Andrew wakes up.
11-midnight: We wake up Emma so Lisa can feed both of them at the same time.
Midnight: Scott huddles in the closet, crying himself to sleep.

As you can see, from 7pm-midnight we always had one kid awake. This is the reason why when you have twins it becomes more important to try and create a schedule. Otherwise you'll never have a moment to call your own. But we're also not extremely strict with our schedule. We know the approximate times that they usually go down, and we try to hit that time as close as possible. Sometimes it's a little early because they're more tired than usual, or sometimes it's a little later because they're still awake. Flexibility is not only important with your joints, but also in your life.

I'm sure the cry-it-out method is not for every parent. Some would rather pick up their baby and some would prefer to use an insulated trunk. And let's face it...eventually your child will sleep through the night whether it be at six months or sixth grade. The bottom line is you have to do what you're comfortable with because at the end of the day you will be responsible for the emotionally scarring you've done to your child.