"Cry it out"

It all started a week ago. I approached Robbie saying "something has to change." I had mulled over various approaches in my mind, but wasn't sure how exactly I was going to get my daughter to sleep through the night. That seems to be the question everyone asks you after your kid is born. "Is she sleeping through the night?"
It must be the question burning on everyones mind....are you getting sleep? Is she getting sleep? Are you sleeping together or is she in her own room?
There are so many different articles and books out there that seem to offer magical advice as to how to get your child to sleep. What I've come to find is that there's no right answer. I've talked to my sisters-in-law who have kids, read blogs, and read books...and everyone seems to have a different answer. The way we did it was pretty much a gamble. We just picked a way, and went with it.
After initially approaching Rob with my plight, he was slightly taken aback. He wondered how we would let our first child cry and cry without maybe causing some kind of damage to her view of us a loving parents. Would it make her distrustful? Insecure? Or would she be fine?
I had read a chapter in one of my go-to books for parents, "The New Basics" by Dr. Michael Cohen. One of his more hard-core approaches was to literally put the child down when they were tired, but not asleep, say goodnight, and leave the room - not to come back until 7.am. However long it took to cry you were to let the child cry and not interfere. At all.
It seems cruel, but after we read the chapter in this book together and read the reasonings behind this approach, we decided we'd give it a try. The author's a doctor, right? We could trust him, right?
Well that night we did it. We took Madi's crib out of our room for the first time since she'd been born. Up until last week, she'd slept in our room, in either the Pack 'n Play, our bed, or the crib. Now she was ready for her very own room! I'll have to admit, once we were a "go" for the plan, I was slightly sad....I would miss snuggling her and having here with me! But I had to remind myself....we all needed better sleep. No more waking every 2 hours for a feeding session..tossing and turning, lying half-asleep stiff as a board, afraid to roll on her or cover her with my blankets.
So we did it - followed through- no interference. We had to simply let her "cry it out" learn to "self-soothe"....
We have learned:
1. She has learned to suck her fingers/thumb, and almost prefers them to her pacifier now!
2. She doesn't really need to eat in the middle of the night, it was probably more for the comfort of it (she's a hearty 18 lbs. at just 5 months old ! )
3. We are all getting better sleep now... and everyone is comfortable.
4. We can function and schedule better during the day now that we have a bedtime/morning routine.
5. Sometimes it takes a little pain in the short-term to grow and learn something helpful for the long term (just like God deals with us!)
I'll admit, it was hard watching my little innocent babe cry and cry, sometimes for a good 30 minutes! But seeing how she learned to calm herself down eventually, and seeing how happy she was in the morning after a good-nights sleep was well worth a few crying spells.
It probably made it a little harder, just cuz Madi has been such a "good" baby since she was born....she never really cried all that much. To see her cry at first made me think something may have been wrong..but knowing she was well fed, warm, and had a clean diaper reassured me that all was well...it would just have to be a season of hardship before a new leaf was turned.
We'll see how long this lasts....its working well so far..until a growth spurt comes, a tooth is cut, a cold is caught...I haven't seen any articles on what to do then! Guess we'll just have to cross that bridge when we get there. I know God will give us wisdom and good instincts to figure it out.