Comfort vs. Cry It Out

You can read a hundred articles on sleep training, but you shouldn't do that. It would drive you bonkers. There is no consensus. There are articles written by psychologists about the lasting harm of sleep training, and there are articles written by psychologists refuting them. There are organizations devoted to natural parenting and teaching soothing techniques, and there are pediatricians who offer step by step sleep training instructions. Just like most things with parenting, no one really knows what they're doing. 

In an ideal world, every baby would be rocked to sleep, and if that baby woke up in the middle of the night, he would be rocked back to sleep. Even if it took hours. Even if that baby needed to be held all night. That baby would et all the comfort he wanted. Futhermore, these tasks would not always be the mom's responsibility. Grandparents and aunts and uncles would be around to help. 

But we don't live in that world. We live miles away from our parents. And we have to get up in the morning for work. And our parents are still working. And our aunts and uncles are all working miles away from us. We live as little nuclear families who are utterly worn out from trying to get our babies to go to sleep. 

I'm not going to tell you what's best, because no one knows. I'm just going to tell you what works for my family. 

When the boys started sleeping in the crib, I nursed them to sleep one at a time. This worked most of the time, because I usually had another adult around who could watch Miss Two and the other baby while I was nursing. 

When helpful adults were around less frequently, I had to get creative. I would put one baby in a portacrib and put Miss Two in her room so I could nurse a baby to sleep. Ah but my smart readers, you can already see that this is not the optimal solution. Sure a toddler in her room can't climb on the kitchen counter and play with the knives, but she can still take her panties off and poop on the floor right in front of the door so that when you open said door, poop gets smeared everywhere. Plus whichever baby is in the portacrib waiting for his turn to nurse to sleep is also screaming bloody murder. This means that you are rushing to put the first baby to sleep. And you end up moving him to the crib before he is deeply asleep. And he wakes up crying. But you've already started nursing the second baby. And now no one is sleeping and there's poop on the floor. 

I did that nonsense for months. I really didn't want to give up the sweetness of nursing my babies to sleep. But now we have a better system. 

Now when it is naptime or bedtime, and my boys are rubbing their eyes, I put them both in the crib at the same time. I say, "Good night sweet babies!" or "Take a nice nap!" while I rub their backs for a moment. Then I leave the room and watch them on the camera for ten minutes. Usually they will fuss for a little while and then Little Guy will suck his thumb and go to sleep, and Big Guy will bury his face in his little monkey-blankie-toy-thing and go to sleep. 

I go back into the nursery if: 

• the fussing lasts longer than ten minutes
• the fussing becomes full on crying
• one of them gets a limb stuck between the bars of the crib

When I go back in, if they are both awake, I will tandem nurse them and then put them back in the crib and start over. If only one of them is awake, I might nurse him to sleep, or I might leave him in the crib and rub his back until he goes to sleep. 

You might be thinking to yourself, It makes sense to do this at nap times when you are home alone with the kids, but at bedtime, isn't your husband usually home? Can't he watch two kids while you nurse a baby to sleep? Yes. We did this for a long time. But it is not optimal. You still run the risk of having to listen to one baby cry downstairs while you are nursing his brother to sleep, which leads to the rushing of the first baby's nursing session, and the moving to the crib before he is deeply asleep, and the waking up and crying, etc. Before you know it, you've spent an hour and a half taking turns nursing one baby back to half-sleep while the other baby cries in the crib. 

Plus, consistency is good for kids. Nap times and bedtime should be similar. So I stopped all that nonsense. I put my kids in the crib at the same time. No preferential treatment. No hour and half long bedtimes. No neglecting the toddler in the middle of the day. 

When the boys wake up in the middle of the night, I still nurse them back to sleep. And I soak up all those sweet snuggles.

This is what works for us. It took 8 months for us to figure it out. I hope you and your family figure it out sooner, and I hope you all get some sleep.