Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Tough love
We're back from our 5-day trip to Oregon, where we saw old friends in Portland and spent the holiday weekend in Philomath, where my wife spent her formative years. This is a tiny town of 4200 outside Corvallis, and there ain't much to do there except hang out with family, eat hamburgers at Paul's, stroll around "downtown" Corvallis once or twice, etc. Fortunately, I enjoy the time with my in-laws, and my brother-in-law Erik was along for the ride, and he's always entertaining.
Anyway, Lindsay did great on the trip, for the most part. A few rough nights, which brings us to the title of tonight's entry: tough love. We've decided that Lindsay needs to learn to soothe herself to sleep -- she's become accustomed to us going in and putting her on her side and replacing the pacifier, and this is happening every hour or so. It's exhausting for us and for her, and we haven't been making any progress on getting entire nights of sleep (except when we break down and use the magical swing). The "cry it out" philosophy is controversial...and excruciating, like right know as I hear her wailing back in the nursery and Nicola and I fight our parental urges to go in and make it stop/make it better. It's agony listening to her cry! Why, then, are we doing this? Well, a few nights of struggle make for a better, more consistent sleeper, which = a better rested baby which = more rested parents and so on. We will all be happier. This worked for Ella at about the same age...but my memory fails on how long we had to endure the cries (45 minutes the first night? and then?) before she got with the plan. I hope Lindsay catches on soon...and I hope we are doing the right thing! She seems ready -- she can put herself to sleep first thing at night and for naps, so why not other times?
Please, little one, don't be so upset! And don't hate us for making tough decisions that are temporarily painful (? -- can babies remember pain? let's hope not, or I've got two little girls who will hatch schemes to hamstring me some day).
I'll write more tomorrow and try to get back to regular blogging. I've got a few ideas, more along the observational/philosophical line. Like, why is it that I keep thinking that the word "sanguine" means, or sounds like it means, calm and at peace? When it really means bloodthirsty? The fourth definition at m-w.com is confident or optimistic...which is sort of like at peace? I just keep wanting to use the word wrong -- today I was driving briskly over the Bay Bridge on my way to Children's Hospital for Lindsay's doctor's appointment (there's an anomaly on her skull we want checked out). I was fuming at the lack of cooperation of my fellow drivers -- they didn't, apparently, understand the urgency of my journey. But then I realized that I had plenty of time to get there, so I took a deep breath, and I thought, "I'm sanguine about this situation" or something along those lines. I meant "I'm at peace"...not "I'm bloodred." Although I could have meant "I'm cheerful" (another meaning).
Enough about that vocabulary navel gazing. Perhaps I'll stick to writing just about our little girl over and over. We'll see -- if the crying keeps up, I may have to write to assuage my guilt.
Anyway, Lindsay did great on the trip, for the most part. A few rough nights, which brings us to the title of tonight's entry: tough love. We've decided that Lindsay needs to learn to soothe herself to sleep -- she's become accustomed to us going in and putting her on her side and replacing the pacifier, and this is happening every hour or so. It's exhausting for us and for her, and we haven't been making any progress on getting entire nights of sleep (except when we break down and use the magical swing). The "cry it out" philosophy is controversial...and excruciating, like right know as I hear her wailing back in the nursery and Nicola and I fight our parental urges to go in and make it stop/make it better. It's agony listening to her cry! Why, then, are we doing this? Well, a few nights of struggle make for a better, more consistent sleeper, which = a better rested baby which = more rested parents and so on. We will all be happier. This worked for Ella at about the same age...but my memory fails on how long we had to endure the cries (45 minutes the first night? and then?) before she got with the plan. I hope Lindsay catches on soon...and I hope we are doing the right thing! She seems ready -- she can put herself to sleep first thing at night and for naps, so why not other times?
Please, little one, don't be so upset! And don't hate us for making tough decisions that are temporarily painful (? -- can babies remember pain? let's hope not, or I've got two little girls who will hatch schemes to hamstring me some day).
I'll write more tomorrow and try to get back to regular blogging. I've got a few ideas, more along the observational/philosophical line. Like, why is it that I keep thinking that the word "sanguine" means, or sounds like it means, calm and at peace? When it really means bloodthirsty? The fourth definition at m-w.com is confident or optimistic...which is sort of like at peace? I just keep wanting to use the word wrong -- today I was driving briskly over the Bay Bridge on my way to Children's Hospital for Lindsay's doctor's appointment (there's an anomaly on her skull we want checked out). I was fuming at the lack of cooperation of my fellow drivers -- they didn't, apparently, understand the urgency of my journey. But then I realized that I had plenty of time to get there, so I took a deep breath, and I thought, "I'm sanguine about this situation" or something along those lines. I meant "I'm at peace"...not "I'm bloodred." Although I could have meant "I'm cheerful" (another meaning).
Enough about that vocabulary navel gazing. Perhaps I'll stick to writing just about our little girl over and over. We'll see -- if the crying keeps up, I may have to write to assuage my guilt.
// posted by Bill @ 9:37 PM 
