Mission: Impossible?

The mission, should I choose to accept it, is to try and get my baby girl to go from this:

to this:

Without having to do any of this:

It is going to be a long, hard journey and I am working on a detailed battle plan to assist me as well as hold myself accountable to completing it.

You see, like many new parents, we had an idea of how we wanted to handle situations like this before we became parents. We read the books. We had a battle plan. We hopped on the Babywise train and LOVED the book. So much that we ultimately chose our pediatrics office specifically with the intention of implementing Babywise. Then Miriam was born.

And if you have been a reader of my blog for longer than a month, you are well aware that we were blessed with a child who has fabulous lungs and trouble digesting. Not a fun combination.

When she was about 2 weeks old, I asked her doctor if now was an ideal time to begin getting her on the feed time, wake time, nap time schedule. He looked at me and uttered words that reinforced me as a mother and made my feelings of inadequacy dissipate. He said, "Throw Babywise out the window. When you have a sick baby, you need to do everything in your power to make her feel better and enable you to survive."

He validated what I already sensed.....that there is no such thing as "crying it out" with a colic baby. You simply try to get them to feel better and sleep so that you could sleep and have the energy to start it all over again in the morning.....or in our case, the energy to continue it well through the night. It was wonderful advice because although I truly desired to get Miriam on a schedule, the thought of attempting it in the midst of acid reflux, colic and postpartum depression not only exhausted me, but filled me with such a dread that I wondered if I would ever enjoy being a mother.

So, that's what we did. We survived. We set up a bedtime routine very early on, so she at least would know when she was expected to go to sleep for the night. And we established a nap schedule during the day using whatever "sleep props" worked for her and us.

She started sleeping through the night at about 3 months and did it consistently for several weeks. Her colic disappeared at 4 months and her acid reflux is under control with the help of (a very expensive) medicine.

So, here we are today. 5 months old. And she is getting up almost every two hours again. I want to say to her, " What? Are you new here? This is not how we do things." But, I know that it is in part due to the fact that in order to survive during those early days of newborn hell, Miriam was rocked to naptime dreams in her swing and quieted to sleep at night at my breast. It's time to change that.

I dusted off our parenting books that we fawned over while she was in utero and re-read them to try and decide the best way to go about this. Because, like mentioned before, we did love Babywise, however in our journey up to this point I made a few discoveries about myself as a mother that completely surprised me and those who know me best (mainly my mother and my husband). And if you know me at all, you might be surprised to learn this revelation as well. Are you ready???

I am a total attachment parenting, demand feeding, breastfeeding loving, Le Leche League member-ing, womb re-creating, don't like to hear my baby crying MAMA!

Seriously.

Now, while I don't agree with Dr. Harvey in Happiest Baby on the Block that babies were not meant to be born at nine months, I do find many of his calming techniques extremely helpful. Miriam hated to be swaddled, so it obviously isn't the 'end all' cure to colic. Even if we did it "correctly" as instructed in his video.

I should also point out that although I don't like to hear my baby cry, I don't pick her up every single time she whines. I don't think it will kill her or affect her emotional attachment to me down the road if I don't attend to her every complaint.

Those of you who have used Babywise are probably thinking at this point....."What in tarnation is she going to use in Babywise if she is all those things she listed above?"

Welp, here is what I am going to do. I am still going to demand feed. And I am still going to do much of the attachment parenting. But, I am going to have clear nap times scheduled for my little one. She is going to go down at the same time everyday WITHOUT her swing and WITHOUT me nursing her to sleep. I will probably still use the sound machine because I don't want to rip the rug right out from under her, causing her to feel like her Mama just completely rocked her little world. I know she won't remember it when she is older, but I most certainly will. I still remember my labor and everyone told me I would forget. I didn't. And it sucked.

I am also going to implement the feed time, wake time, nap time schedule. This will be determined by the times in which I choose for her to go down for her naps.

And, I will admit this to the entire blogging world......Miriam is still sleeping in our room. Not in our bed, but in the pack'n'play in our room. I like it. No....I LOVE it. But, I know that it is getting to be time to 'grow her up' and put her in her own room at night. This presents another problem. I am completely and utterly terrified of SIDS. I pray about it every night and all day long, but I am still afraid that I will become the one case that everyone talks about in hushed, regretful tones.

So, I am hoping that with our tax check, I can convince my husband to purchase this Cadillac of baby monitors I found on Amazon.

As soon as I get my battle plan completed, I am going to tackle this Mission and hope that it is not impossible. I am determined and I am going to pray like crazy. Will you join me, please?

I will let you know when it begins and I am going to document it for 21 days. Why 21? Well, in the Bible, it says that.....ha. Just kidding. I chose 21 days because they say that 21 days is how long it takes us to form a new habit. And I am not sure who "they" are, but "they" are pretty smart people, I think. I mean, "they" also say that "Laughter is the best medicine" and that seems to be a pretty accurate statement.

So, friends, become my prayer warriors. Each day when you put your baby down wide awake and they drift off peacefully on their own for their nap or bedtime (they all do that, don't they???) think of me and offer up a prayer for the crying that is most certainly going on in my house. I will try not to cry too loud as to not wake up Miriam.