Scheduling

My child is officially three months old, and I am starting to think it is time to put her on a schedule and start enforcing it. However, with the habits that Lorelei has gotten used to so far, it seems that I will not be able to put her on a schedule unless I let her "cry it out" a little...something I have had mixed feelings about since before she was born.

Prior to now, we have been pretty much doing things on demand. After we got through that long and difficult time of nursing her every 1-2 hours (where she pretty much just slept in between,) I tried to start feeding her on demand so she could regulate her eating and my supply. Then I started to try the "eat, activity, sleep" thing, where I would feed her as soon as she woke up, try to keep her up for a while, then put her to sleep when she seemed tired. With a few exceptions, this had been working. However, she had only been taking her naps on my chest and in her swing, and every time I tried to lay her down, she would cry and wake herself up. At night she slept fine in her pack and play/bassinett thing, but almost always had to be nursed right before bed.

Now that my summer work-from-home jobs are starting, it is starting to be inconvenient that I can not give predictable times to get work done because she is napping. It is hard to set work hours when I could be tending to her any given hour of the day. Her frequency of eating and sleeping was pretty regular, but with different intervals. So here I am, trying to put her on a sort of "schedule," and also have her sleep in the pack and play (so I can eventually transfer her to the crib) for her naps.

So here is the plan: I am taking note of every time she eats and sleeps, noting the duration of the naps, for an entire week to see if a pattern emerges. With that, I will try to create some more solidified times of her eating and sleeping, with her still essentially leading the schedule (I am picking the times from her on-demand schedule, and then trying to narrow them down a little.) I am not sure if this will work, but hopefully it is worth a shot. I also gave in and swaddled her for a nap today (normally we just do that at bedtime,) and she actually slept for an hour and a half in her pack and play. I was so excited! Hopefully it will be easier to wean her from swaddling eventually, but for now, that is what works.

The hardest part of this schedule is the cry it out thing. Cry it out was something I was told you let babies do from a young age so that they do not learn "bad habits" or manipulate you when you are trying to put them on a schedule directed by parents. I was told this by family members, some friends, and a few well-meaning books. Then over my pregnancy, I joined a message board full of women who equated letting a baby cry it out to abandonment and would threaten to call Child Protective Services if someone posted that they let their under-4-month-old do it. I am not kidding. I found my own beliefs somewhere in the middle. I defintitely knew that my daughter has needs, especially as an infant, and crying is her only way to comunicate them. Especially with her eating issues, I had to follow her cues. However, if there came a time where I was doing something and I knew she was OK, I would let her cry for a few minutes. I also know that never enforcing some form of sleep training seems impractical, and babies under 4 months old can learn habits (maybe not life-changing ones, but hard-to-break ones.) While my newborn may have had some confusion if I did not respond to her cries, my 3 month old is not going to be scarred for life if I decide to start sleep-training her. She is becoming smarter and more interactive, and she knows now that I respond to her crying. If she is crying in her pack and play and I walk in and she immediately stops, I know she is not crying because she needs something. She just wants me around. And while I LOVE that my touch and my presence can calm her, I want to have some freedom to get other things done and for her to learn some form of self-soothing.

So here I am, faced with a dilemma. I do not want to be one who lets my little girl cry for 45 minutes straight until she falls asleep in exhaustion. I still think she is too young for that. I also do not want to be the mother of a three month old whose world entirely revolves around not only my baby's needs but her constant desire for comfort. Does that make me selfish or cruel? Am I putting my desires above my child's or am I helping her in the long run? I have seen friends on both ends of this spectrum, and both have different battles to face. I wish there was a right answer.

I am now seeking counsel from friends who I know have dealt with this. In the meantime, I am letting her cry in small intervals, and it is kind of working. For her nap, she cried for about three minutes, I went in to sooth her (without picking her up) and she fell right to sleep. Tonight at bedtime, she cried for about an hour WITH me holding her and trying to rock her into a drowsy state. I finally put her to bed and she cried again. After several tries from both Allen and I to soothe her (after each she cried as soon as we stepped away,) I came into the room to find Allen had unzipped her Woombie (swaddler,) was holding her hands and gently shaking the pack and play to "rock" her to sleep (which eventually worked.) So I guess tonight's "sleep training" was a fail? We will see what tomorrow brings.