Tears of frustration

Between the 2, Jordan has always been the one that has had more trouble staying asleep. She falls asleep fine, often, earlier than Evan. The trouble is keeping her asleep and getting her back to sleep when she wakes in the middle of the night. Some have suggested crying it out or controlled crying or some form of training for her to learn to self soothe.

The problem is Jordan has a powerful set of lungs and a strong mind to match. So she basically can cry for long stretches if she doesn't get what she want.

Last night was testament to that. She'd had a long day in school and fell asleep early. But by 1 am, she was awake and needed to be coaxed to go back to bed. But the little girl had got it in her head that she needed Papa (currently her flavour of the month). When I told her that Papa was sleeping, she was not pleased and became intent in getting out of her room. She started to cry herself into a state because I didn't want her to leave her room. I didn't want to make it a habit for her to fall asleep in our room, which I knew she'd do the minute I took her over.

By that time, Packrat had woken to her loud screams and had come over. But even he couldn't calm her down. There were more tears and flailing of limbs followed by the inadvertent gagging because she'd cried so hard, she'd choked. I am once again thankful that I'd somewhat weaned her off a night feed because then, there wasn't really anything to throw up.

By then, it was 3.30 am and she'd cried for 2 1/2 hours straight and both mine and Packrat's nerves were somewhat jangled. I'd made it a point not to scold her in the middle of the night because I'd figured she would be half asleep and somewhat unaware of what she was doing. But last night, something snapped at about 3.30am and I raised a warning finger at her and told her in a soft but unmistakeably stern tone to stop her nonsense.

For some strange reason, she obeyed at that point, came obediently to me and lay down in my arms. But by then, my nerves were so raw and I was so exhausted from 2 1/2 hours of wailing that I just started to sob while I lay there with her in my arms. She sensed that something was different because she turned to me, held my face and said "Mommy, no no no". And proceeded to keep checking on me till she fell asleep.

Packrat thinks she was contrite for putting us through hell. I don't know. But all I know is that, with this girl, crying it out is not an option. It is a battle of the wills and the adult has to have the stronger will, unfortunately, she has a stronger set of lungs and a stronger constitution.

So even though we won the battle last night, we sure as heck didn't win the war and I feel tired just wondering about how many more of these nights we will have. I thought the all night crying ended when the colic ended. It turns out, I was wrong.

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