It seems like everybody and their mother has an opinion regarding what should be done to get Caleb to sleep in his crib...to fall asleep on his own...to stay asleep throughout the night. This past week it seems that Caleb's sleeping has taken a turn for the worse...his naps have become struggles and his bedtime has become unpredictable.

Previous routine...put him to sleep, either after his last feeding or by rocking him, put him down in his crib. If he cried, we picked him up and rocked him back to sleep again. Most nights he'd sleep through...some nights he'd get up and need to eat.

Current routine...feed him dinner at around 7-8 (depending on his last bottle). That seems pretty late, but he's usually not hungry prior to that and I don't want to feed him dinner at 4 or 5...that seems too early. Bocha him at around 8:30ish, then take him into his room, play his lullaby cd, and lie down on the bed with him. Read him a couple books, let him roll around. When it gets to the time when he's rubbing his eyes and starting to fuss, we'll take him to our room, put him in our bed, and lie down with him...in about 10 minutes, he's out, with no help from us other than being by his side. After about 20 minutes, we carry him to his crib and he's out for the night (or, if he didn't eat enough throughout the day, will wake up and need to drink a bottle and then go back to sleep). In the morning, after his 5:30 or 6:30 bottle, I throw him back in bed with us and we all sleep for another hour or two. This routine has been happening for about 4 days.

Now all I've been hearing (or maybe it just seems amplified because of my struggle with it), is, "You gotta let him cry it out." This means, put him in his crib and let him cry...even if it takes 30 minutes or more of vigorous crying. Now I've been looking up information on what exactly "crying it out" entails...and it's basically that you follow your bedtime routine, then while still awake, put Caleb in the crib, kiss him goodnight and reassure him that we're right in the next room and that it's time for him to go to sleep. Then, walk out, let him cry. Okay, so we've tried this a couple times...and it has gotten to the point where I end up in tears, questioning how letting him scream in terror and confusion can be compassionate. How does that show him love? How does that teach him that we, as his parents, are going to take care of his needs? How does that help him feel secure, loved, and not abandoned? After a good 30 minutes of vigorous yelling, crying, screeching...I've picked him up.

So, in some eyes, that means we've failed. We've failed as parents, as disciplinarians, as guides to making Caleb understand that we mean business when we say it's time to sleep. We've failed to persevere through his crying; we're teaching him that if he cries long enough, we'll come and get him, so the next time he'll cry even longer because he knows that we will give in.

Is this failure? I asked Dave, are we hurting Caleb by letting him fall asleep peacefully, soothingly, in our bed? Are we creating a foundation that will continue to result in "giving in" to what he wants? Does him falling asleep with us and then being moved to his crib damage us or him? Does it teach him that he's loved and cared for, or does it teach him that he can take advantage of our perceived "weakness"?

I look at Caleb...I look at him when he's in the throes of desperate crying, yelling, screeching...and I hurt. I am not strong in this...I commend mom's who have done it, and wonder when I'll have the strength to do it too. I'm sure I'm not the only first- time mom who has ached when told to let their baby cry it out. I feel like my job is to be Caleb's protector, his comfort, his unconditionally loving mother. I want to raise him to be a loving person, who knows the difference between right and wrong...I'm not a hippie mom whose philosophy is to let him explore his boundaries on his own and not set any for him, but I also am not the iron-fisted mom, whose philosophy is to rule with an iron-hand and heart.

So what do I do? I pray, and believe that this, like every other difficulty we've faced in our 6 months of parenting, has already been laid out for us and we just have to figure out how to handle it. I'm researching too...tomorrow I'll go to the library and learn just what the "crying it out" method entails...the philosophy behind it, and the way we can use it to lovingly teach Caleb how to sleep on his own. And then, I'm going to draft a letter to my neighbors, and hope that the cops aren't called when we finally figure out how to let Caleb "cry it out."