Yes, to celebrate Aiden hitting his 4-month birthday, we decided to torture him slightly by letting him "cry it out" at night. I'm joking about the torture part (even though it doesn't sound like it at 3am). All the parenting books say that by 4 months old, infants don't need to wake up at night to eat - they're just used to it. We went through the same thing with Alli when she hit 4 months old, so we knew what we were in for.
So Saturday night rolled around and Mommy B and I had our earplugs ready. Our real concern was that Aiden's crying would wake Alli up throughout the night... and the last thing we wanted was two exhausted children. Aiden woke up around midnight and cried for about 20 minutes or so, then went back to sleep. He then woke himself up again around 3am and cried for about 10-15 minutes, and again went back to sleep. 5:30am came around and we decided to finally get up and feed the kid. And naturally, he went back to sleep until almost 8am. We knew that this routine couldn't continue because it wouldn't work out on the weekdays, but we wanted to take it one step at a time.
Sunday night was more of the same. He made it a little longer before his first cry-fest, but still woke himself up a few times throughout the night to cry it out. Listening to your infant cry from across the hall is one of the most awful things a parent can ever go through. But we know that deep down in our hearts that it's all a means to an end - that will make everyone happier once the process is complete.
The good part about it was that on Sunday he seemed to fall into a better, more-regular nap schedule. We're trying to get him on the same 9-11am and 1-3pm routine Alli fell into when she was his age - just so his teachers can keep him on a schedule during the week and we can continue it on the weekends. Plus, if he can take a nap in the afternoons at the same time his sister does, that would be wonderful for Mommy B and I.
So needless to say, Mommy B and I are a little worn out from this weekend's festivities. But, there's no rest for the weary when you have two kids under the age of two. We know that we have to keep Aiden on this routine knowing that it'll all pay off in a few days, just like it did with Alli. And we know that Alli might get out of her bed more in the future, but she's doing well so far. We also started Aiden on rice cereal this morning, and he didn't seem to notice a difference. At least he didn't make me aware of any discomfort with it added to his bottle. My hope is that we can give him a full bottle with rice cereal added right before he goes to bed and it'll fill him up a little longer. Hopefully each night we can stretch him a little longer without feeding him until he's eventually sleeping all the way through the night without waking up at all.
What a weekend indeed.
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