Misery Needs Company

This will be a short post. Because I'm tired. We just spent nearly an hour getting Laney to go to sleep.

Here's the story. Laney has been a champion sleeper from the beginning. She's slept through the night from 3-weeks-old, she naps regularly, and has always gone to sleep easily while happily babbling to her stuffed animals. That's just not the case anymore. For the past week or so, it's been World War III every time we try to put her down at night.

So I've begun to research the opposing sleep methods of Dr. Ferber and Dr. Sears. This is what I've come to learn: I can "ferberize" Laney by letting her cry herself to sleep and risk permanently damaging her psyche if her sleeping problem happens to be linked to a fear of being alone. Or I can have her sleep with Marshall and I and risk having to buy a California king-size bed in the future that is big enough for Marshall, myself, and a 16-year-old to sleep in. Decisions, decisions. HA!

I realize I'm exaggerating a bit, but it is hard to decide how to raise a child in 2010 when none of your close friends have children and your only advisors are your own parents, who haven't dealt with these issues in over 20 years and probably don't even remember exactly how they put us to sleep! That's right, I wish at least one of my friends was dealing with difficult baby issues, too, and was sitting up at midnight blogging about them. I need some company. As for a tangible solution to my problem, I guess Marshall and I will just have to settle for finding a method somewhere in between the two extremes that will work for Laney. And hopefully she won't grow up feeling scarred, unloved, or overly-coddled. And just maybe she'll forgive us for our inexperience. These are the times that make me sure that the second child will be much easier in certain ways. Or maybe parenthood will just seem less dramatic by then.

Pray for us.