Baby Manipulator!

We've hit a crossroads with our sweet, innocent baby boy! He's a little manipulator! It's frightening to know that at such a young age they already know how to get what they want. We've been sooooo fortunate to have had the best sleeping child since early on. Dane was sleeping through the night by 12 weeks and did absolutely wonderful until he hit about 8.5 months old. I think the night waking started with his eczema and then his ear infection, but it's continued to his 10 month birthday and Cameron and I are done with sleepless nights. I NEVER thought I would have to let my child cry it out and I never WANTED to let my child cry it out, but that is where we are at...no other options. The sound of him crying truly is like torture for me...it takes every ounce of my being not to go into his room and comfort him. We've exhausted every recommendation from the "experts" that write books about how to get your baby to sleep through the night without letting them cry. We've tried everything we know to do...added 2 night lights to his room because he might be afraid of the dark, added more "white" noise because he might hear us, rocked him for hours upon hours for him to fall asleep in my arms and wake as soon as his little head hits his crib. We've finally figured out the problem...he's old enough to know exactly what he's doing and he's crying at night for attention. We know that for 8.5 months he would occasionally wake up through the night, but he didn't cry...he just went back to sleep. Now he knows that someone is going to come and get him. So we've made the incredibly hard decision (after much counseling from friends & family) to let him cry. We don't let him cry really hard like he's in need of something, but we have found that as long as he's just crying for attention he doesn't cry for more than 3 minutes before giving up. If he cries for more than 5 minutes, we go to him. I don't think I would have been comfortable letting him cry it out at an earlier age, but he's pushing a year old and I need sleep too!

Wow...the things we learn as first time parents! I knew that parenting wasn't going to be easy, but I didn't expect to have a great sleeper in the beginning and a horrible sleeper toward that one year mark! I was so naive in thinking that I would never have to let my child cry...so many of my friends have told me to let him cry it out, it's time, he's old enough, blah blah blah and for some reason I thought that I would be above that option. It's a hard decision to reach and one that I don't take lightly...like I said, I've had counseling from my mom and sister and they had to assure me that I was not emotionally wrecking this little being. So for all the phone calls and for all the advice...I thank you my friends & family for helping me get to this point. I truly believe that sleepFUL nights are in the near future because each night seems to be getting better!

We've done 2 nights of this method and the first night he woke up about 5 times and I had to go in twice because he went over our max of 5 minutes. Last night he didn't make one peep!! I don't think that one night has trained him, but wouldn't it be awesome if it did??? I was very relieved that he didn't wake last night, but this morning when Cameron got up I asked him to go make sure Dane was breathing! Hopefully tonight goes as well as last night did!