Right or wrong?

Last night was one of the more trying nights we've had with Kaylani. We thought we had put nights like that behind us when we survived sleep training 3 months ago, but we were wrong. Our first attempt at sleep training was nothing compared to what we went through last night. And we're hoping that was the last of it.

After surviving the cows during the day yesterday, Kaylani gave us all the signs that we were in for a good night. She nursed well, she burped well, and she was sleepy but awake when we put her down for bed. She even played by herself for 10 minutes before falling asleep all on her own around 8:30pm. So for awhile, Kaylani looked like she was back to her good sleeping habits.

But then 12:45am rolled around. We woke up to Kaylani crying, but we held off on doing anything. We had to break her of this crying for someone to get her habit she was getting into because she was just manipulating us. If she would just re-learn how to fall asleep on her own, we'd be okay going forward. After an hour, I went in to turn her around and calm her down, which didn't work. After two hours, we were on the verge of giving in but had to stay strong. Our pediatrician urged us to stay strong so she didn't learn that crying gets results.

After two and a half hours we were at our breaking point. Mommy had to get up and leave the room. She resorted to the computer to help distract her from running into Kaylani's room and picking her up. Daddy sat on the edge of the bed for awhile and stared at the video monitor while listening to her cry. 15 minutes later, or two hours and 45 minutes after Kaylani started crying, she fell silent. She finally fell asleep.

Mommy couldn't even come back to the room right away. She needed to calm down just a bit more before she could even think about sleeping. "Why did we have a baby if we're going to let her do that" was the only thing she could get out of her mouth before breaking down. "Because we're teaching her to sleep in the future" was the only answer I could give, and last night, even I wasn't convinced. It was a tough night, but we survived. Barely, but we survived.

Now many parents will probably tell us we were wrong to let her cry for so long. That we should run to her and comfort her because she needs our support and she's too young. Others will tell us that we did the right thing, and that it really will pay off in the future. Right now, we're not sure if we did the right thing or the wrong thing yet. We do know that she cried again tonight for an hour before finally falling asleep, but she fell asleep on her own, and that's what matters.

If she cries again in the middle of the night, I'm not sure what we'll do. I'm not even sure what we can handle at this point. We're just hoping that we don't have to make that decision again tonight. We're hoping that what we went through last night will prevent us from having to make that decision for a long time. We'll know what happened in the morning, and I sure hope that morning comes quickly because I won't have any answers to give otherwise.