Validation

At Cael's twelve month check up when we told our pediatrician that we still go in and give Cael a pacifier if he wakes up in the middle of the night, she warned us that at this age he is more aware of what it takes to get Mommy and Daddy to give him what he wants. We discussed letting him cry it out and I told her that while I supported the method, the few times I had tried it, he had ended up having an ear infection. Kind of makes you question your ability to judge the cries and whether or not you are making the right decision to just let him cry. Cael woke up at 4:00 this morning and was WIDE awake. I knew that although he was fine at the moment, if he stayed up until his nap at 11:30, it would completely throw him off of his schedule and he would be cranky and extremely tired. We decided to try letting him cry it out to see if he would fall back asleep. He cried on and off for about 45 minutes, but the best part was that he fell back asleep around 5:15 and slept until 7:45 (he normally wakes up around 6:45-7:00). Much better than if he had actually gotten up at 4:00. The comforting thing about listening to him cry for that long was that he sounded like a little boy who wasn't getting what he wanted as opposed to a baby that was scared or in pain. It was (and is) extremely validating to know that we made the right decision (and not an easy one) for our son and that it paid off!!! Hopefully we won't have to let him cry it out too much in the future, but if we do, I am sticking by my guns because it appears to work!