Scooping

For the past few months I have been feeding Rose once a night (approx. 3 am), but we have been getting out of bed at least 4 more times and responding to cries. At each hint of a cry, we would stumble into the pitch-black nursery. Leaning over the crib, we would search the crib for the expelled pacifier, search for Rose's mouth and replace the pacifier. Her crying would stop and we would stumble back to bed. Obviously there were two major problems: Rose is getting a horrible nights sleep because she has become attached to sleeping with the pacifier and we are getting a horrible nights sleep because of the frequent replacement trips.

In the last few weeks, I started to feel conflicted about how non-attachment parenting we are. I think I may have been slowly brainwashed by the birth center groupies. How natural is it for a baby to sleep alone? Should Rose be alone in her nursery for so long? This nagging thoughts kept entering my mind. On Friday it all came to a head. We had a vigorous debate about what we should do about the nighttime yo-yo hall walking. It slowly became clear to me that now at 6 months she needs to learn to sleep and self-sooth. My nagging thoughts were a little late. So we waded into crying it out. At 2 am that night, we fought through 45 minutes of crying - soothing every 5 minutes, and eventually she slept. Last night she slept until 5.30am, with middle of the night whimpers.

It seems successful, but is incredibly hard. The crying physically hurts. I'm on my own today and she is having her lunchtime nap right now. 30 minutes into it she started to cry. I went to sooth after 5 minutes and made things so much worse. It took another 15 minutes for her to sleep - crying the whole time. She woke up again 20 minutes later and we did the whole thing again. While the monitor wails I look longingly at the pacifiers in the kitchen; if I gave her the dummy there would be silence in a second. But, I have to be strong. This is the beginning of a lifetime of setting boundaries. Just like teaching, consistency is key and unbelievably difficult.

I've just finished the first part of "Scoop" and it is kicking "Lucky Jims" arse. It is still populated by wealthy, pompous British folk doing ridiculous things, but this time is actually funny. An episode of mistaken identity led to William Boot, a reclusive, nature-loving, part time columnist, being sent to cover the civil war in Ishmealia, a north African country "difficult to get to from every direction" instead of the popular writer John Boot. Poor William is out of his depth. His publisher has given him instructions on how to report on the war, regardless of the actual truth. Scoop is all about the power of the media. I imagine William is going to get into all kinds of trouble and have an enormous impact on the British public's view of Ishmelia and possibly the outcome of the war itself. Does this happen all the time?