Cold Turkey

I just scraped out a pumpkin and it's baking in the oven to be pureed (no canned stuff in Poland) and made into delicious fall food so, under the circumstances, just writing that title makes me think of delicious turkey and cranberry sandwiches on dinner rolls the day after Thanksgiving. But that's not the kind of cold turkey I'm talking about.

I'm talking about a muuuuuuuch less pleasant cold turkey, but one that brings significantly longer-lasting satisfaction. Tonight we're letting Spencer cry it out.

Now I know I probably-too-often get on my soapbox about sleep, but it's something I love and need. I know my kids need it, too and I want them to love it. That's why our philosophy and evening/night time routine is what it is. It works for us so we do it.

Spencer has been a good little sleeper. He was waking twice for feedings around 1 and 5 a.m. from the time he was six weeks old. Since he turned maybe two or three months old he only wakes around 5. Until recently.

Lately he wakes up at 10ish, 1ish, 3ish and 5ish. I end up feeding him two or three of those times. He is nine months old. He does not need to eat two or three times during the night. So instead of letting him outgrow his 5 a.m. feeding I'm sort of forced to force him to learn to fall back to sleep when he wakes at night. By force.

Just kidding. I'm just trying to make it sound as evil as possible for those reading who already think it is terrible and torturous. I want this to be a controversial post. I need to be much more controversial on this here blog of mine.

But I guess that's pretty much what it is (cry-it-out is force, not blog is controversial). Still, I've done it enough to know that it's a quick and easy thing that allows us both to get better quality sleep. And also that he won't think I don't love him because of it. I'm pretty sure jumping out of bed to nurse him whenever he called for nine months showed clearly enough that I love him. Letting him cry for two or three nights shouldn't overshadow that.

Still, it's sort of hard on me (us). So I'm asking for sympathetic vibes sent our direction tonight. And if you only have outrage, don't send those vibes, please (just leave them in a comment).

Anyway, I could go on (and on) about sleep and why we train our kids in that area etc. but instead I'll just leave you with an anecdote that illustrates how ingrained it all is in the heads of our children:

Aaron loves The Aristocats and watches it regularly. A lot happens in that movie, sad, happy, funny, crazy etc. Still, the one part of the show that moves Aaron more than any others is not any of these.

After the "Ev'rybody Wants to Be a Cat" scene, Duchess tucks her kittens sweetly into bed. During this part Aaron starts getting noticeably worried. When mama cat walks away the kittens get up out of bed one by one. As soon as Marie, the first one, gets up Aaron starts calling to me, "Oh NO! Mommy! She can't get out of bed! She has to go night-night!" And watches the darling scene that follows with a look of disappointment directed at those kittens.

See? He knows we need sleep. (And he also loves to enforce rules.) And I'm pretty sure he knows I love him, even though I taught him to sleep through the night when he was Spencer's age.