Well, I'd never do that

Alex fought and fought his nap today.  I'm terrified he's phasing out napping all together which I am most certainly not ready for.  I rocked him, I gave him warm milk, I laid him in his crib and each time he stood up, laid him back down again (which just pissed him off).  I left him in his room and stood just outside his door (all the while he was jumping on his mattress).  I went back in to rock him again.  Nothing worked.  Finally, I just put him in bed, gave him his favorite rocket ship blankie and went downstairs (with the monitor of course).

This is significant because "cry it out" is pretty much the last surviving "when I'm a mom I'd never do that" for me.  We all have them.  You know, those things you see other mom's do that you swear you won't.  Whether it be pain relief during childbirth, pacifiers, co sleeping, breastfeeding, letting your baby cry it out...  The list goes on and on.  Almost every woman I know, before she has kids, during pregnancy, somtimes even during those first few newborn months, has the ideal in her head how she will raise her child.  And it most certainly won't be the way THAT woman does it.  We're all judgemental bitches, let's face it.  I know I am.

I pretty much gave in to all of my "I'll never do its" within Alex's first three months.  We co slept, he had a pacifier for a little while, I supplemented breastfeeding with formula, I went back to work full time, I quit my job just before he turned one, I let him eat goldfish crackers and french fries (sometimes even off the floor!).  But I could never let him cry it out for naps or bedtime.  It was just heartbreaking to me, to think that my baby is in there crying for me, needing me, and I wasn't rushing in to rescue him.  But now, the booger is almost 16 months old and threatening to do away with naps all together.  On a couple of occassions he's conned me into letting him skip his nap, and we all pay for it later in the day, Mr. Grumpypants.  Clearly, he still needs his nap.

So I am downstairs, my heart was breaking listening to him scream in his crib through the monitor.  But, I knew he was ok.  He was fed, changed, had a bottle, had his blankies...  It was a full hour past his regular nap time.  And you know what?  Five minutes.  That's all it took.  Five minutes and he's now snoozing away up there.  So maybe "Cry it out" for a toddler isn't so bad.  I still don't think I'd do it with a small baby.  But for Alex, maybe that's just what he needs, to learn to soothe himself to sleep.  Like everything else about parenting, we'll try it and see how it goes.