Welcome to another round of Hot Topic Tuesday! Again, he’s my little disclaimer- if you have no interest in babies, please feel free to pass over this post…tomorrow will be back to normal workout/ cooking/ Gabriella posts! 🙂
Now for the most part Gabriella is a very happy baby. I constantly get smiles from her, just even a glance at Mommy & she will smile. It completely melts my heart. EVERY.SINGLE.TIME.
I mean she even lets me dress her up in all of these silly outfits.
But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t get fussy sometimes…and it definitely doesn’t mean she doesn’t cry. She has her fussy periods every day, and we know they are coming. Usually it’s right before nap time, we always can tell when she is tired. And she ALWAYS gets cranky around 5pm every afternoon. Since she usually goes to bed around 6/ 6:30pm, this is just her pre bedtime fuss.
The thing is that once you have a child, you QUICKLY learn their many cries. There is the ‘I’m hungry cry, the ‘I’m tired cry’, the ‘Leave me alone cry’ <—we NEVER hear that one! haha, the ‘fuss to fuss cry.’ The one we get the most is the ‘fuss to fuss’ cry. It’s when Gabriella doesn’t want to do whatever it is we are doing. A lot of our runs start this way. She doesn’t want to be in the stroller, so she fusses. But then we get going, and about a mile in, she the smiling, happy girl we know.
But before 8 weeks I absolutely refused to let her cry. Any kind of cry. Craig was ok with letting her cry for like 5 minutes, but I wasn’t ok with any of it. I immediately would pick her up & comfort her. I just believe that under 8 weeks is too little to let a baby cry. They may be perfectly fine, fed, changed, and burped…but they may just want some comfort.
I told Craig that after 8 weeks I would try to let her cry a little. And by a little, I mean about 2 minutes. Well, I wasn’t very good at that either. I grabbed her pretty much the second she starting crying. He told me to ask the doctor about the crying situation at her 2 month appointment, so that’s exactly what I did.
I will never forget what he told me at her appointment. “In 20+ years of being a pediatrician, I’ve never heard of a baby expiring from crying.” It was kind of funny, and I definitely understood what he was saying. He said there is NOTHING wrong with letting baby cry a bit, especially since she was now 8 weeks old.
I asked him how he did with his daughter, and he said that he would let her cry. He said he knew nothing was wrong with her, and he had no problem letting her cry. His wife on the other hand was like me. She did not want her daughter crying. But he also said that it’s part of being a Mom, the whole ‘maternal instinct’ part of being a Mom kicks in.
After that appointment and hearing it from a doctor, I figured I could at least try 5 minutes. The only time she really cries is when it’s time for a nap or bed. She doesn’t really cry other times, I mean she will fuss if she wants to move around or do something different than what she is currently doing…but she doesn’t cry much other than when it’s time for sleep.
That night, once I put her to bed, she woke up about 15 minutes later crying. It started out as a little fuss & then it lead to a full on cry. I turned the timer on for 5 minutes. If she didn’t stop within that amount of time, I was going to go get her & rock her back to sleep.
Well, she didn’t stop…and I ended up going to get her. Craig told me that night he was proud of me though, because at least I TRIED & got 5 minutes.
It was NOT easy. I was like this close to crying myself, because I HATE hearing her cry. (even though I know it’s the ‘fuss to fuss’/ ‘I don’t want to sleep even though I’m tired’ cry)
One thing that helped me was thinking of what parents with multiple children or single Moms/ Dads do. I mean if you have more than one child, and you know that baby is just crying to cry & the other child needs you, you are going to attend to the other child & let baby cry for a bit. And then single moms & dads…oh how I give you all SO.MUCH.CREDIT. (it’s amazing how MUCH more you appreciate them when you have a child of your own) I mean if you are in a bind & NEED to get something done, like I don’t know..umm…go to the bathroom for example, and baby is crying the fuss cry. Well, you really have no choice, you have to let baby just cry. These are just examples that I would think about when she was doing her fuss cry…and it helped a lot.
^love that picture, because the onesie COMPLETELY describes her ‘small & sassy.’ 😉
Once I got past letting her crying tear me up inside, things got easier. Not just for me, but for G too. She knew when it was time to nap or go to bed that I wasn’t going to go & rush to grab her…and that she better at least try to sleep. She’s sleeping better, and her little routine seems to be working a lot better too.
Sometimes when I am having a hard day, and I hear her cry, I don’t care I will still go & get her the second I hear it. I don’t think that will ever change though. I absolutely LOVE holding her every second of the day, but there is nothing like holding a baby after a rough day. It is just heaven on earth. Just sitting there staring at her. I love it.
I know this is a HUGE hot topic in the parenting world. Some people are COMPLETELY against letting babies/ children cry at any age. And there are others that have no problem letting baby cry from day one. I honestly just think it depends on the person and the family. Whatever works for YOU & YOUR FAMILY is what is right. No sense listening to people that want to tell you what you are doing is the ‘wrong way.’ You know your family, and you know your baby!
If you have children, what is your opinion on crying? How did you approach the situation?
Everyday's a 'Hollyday' 