Score: Baby 189 – Parents 2

If I were keeping score on the times I have been beaten, outscored on, outran, out maneuvered or out gunned, I think it would look something like the title.  The baby has beaten me, there is no way I will win.  Its unfortunate really because I am an educated, smart, savy, come from the mean streets of a small town scrappy kind of girl; and a child, without the ability to hold his own bowel movements or articulate a simple word has beaten me.
The Situation
We have gotten into a pattern of behavior where he wakes up in the middle of the night to eat.  The Ped had suggested he is showing a preference from breastfeeding which I can appreciate and understand.
The Solution
Stop feeding him at night, if he wakes up go in and pick him up, rock him back to sleep, he’ll eventually stop waking up for the food that he isn’t getting.
The Consequent Situation
Baby will no longer allow you to rock or comfort him back to sleep without food he will instead wake up the second you put him down and scream out you until you pick him back up at which point he is fine.  Takes about 20 – 30 minutes to artfully get him back in his crib and asleep at which point you may or may not be woken up again during the night to repeat the process.
The Solution
Don’t pick him up at night, baby has to learn that just because he cried doesn’t mean he gets food or is picked up.  Let him cry it out (worst thing I have ever done) for 10 minutes, go into the room for 5 minutes.  Shhh Shhh Shhh with your hand on his chest to comfort him and let him know that you are there, he will eventually tire himself out and go to sleep.
The Consequent Situation.
Baby says Fuck You to this plan and instead screams his head off for 2 hours in 10 minute increments and is only calm for the 5 minutes you are in the room but the second you leave he begins to scream again.
The Solution
At 2:30 am when you have been up since 12:30 and you are so stressed out from the crying, say fuck it and go in, pick baby up, rock him until he calms down enough that he can take a breath without a hitch and feed the little shit where he will then of course sleep through the rest of the night uninterrupted.

So this is where I am, allowing him to cry it out is hands down the worst feeling in the world.  There is a physical reaction to him crying that makes me want to go and take care of him.  Having to listen to my head and not go into his room is like putting two pit bulls in a cage and letting them fight it out.  My heart rate increases, my blood pressure increases I can’t focus on anything else.  Making myself not go into his room only serves to agitate me so when my husband says “what’s wrong with him?” I snap at him in the middle of the night because I’m super stressed and frazzled by the entire altercation.  I can’t handle listening to him work himself into a full on fit where he can’t breath because he is screaming, just screaming.  Apparently my son has a stubborn streak as wide as mine (which is going to be bad for everyone) as he literally was like “fuck you mom I will not be ignored, you will cave eventually”  And I did cave, monumentally, which means that everything I did last night was for naught.    I literally had to sit  in my bed and tell myself over and over again, no one cares that he’s crying, he has to learn to deal with this, he will get over it because anything less hardcore than that and I was going to sprint into his room and scoop him up faster than the Twinkies were flying off the shelf last week.
I’m exhausted and annoyed with the whole thing.  Part of me says go back to just picking him up and not feeding him, that will take longer but will most likely work eventually.  Let him cry it out again but don’t go in and comfort him at all just let him scream for hours until he gives up.  That may actually kill me and I make no guarantees that I can actually accomplish it which means I am making him, me the dog the cat and my husband suffer for no reason at all.  I could just feed him but that really isn’t a plausible situation he cannot continue to get middle of the night feedings if he doesn’t need them.  But how am I supposed to know if he needs it or not?  There the possibility of a growth spurt, his poor little tummy was grumbling last night because he is hungry so what do I do let him be hungry for the sake of my schedule?
Being a parent sucks, I know I’m usually all tie it back into something positive or give you a nice thing to think about but that’s not the case today kids.  I am faced with an impossible choice, screw my sleep pattern, create a dependent child on the boob, not respond to his needs so he feels no one cares … fill in the blank.  There does not appear to be a solution or an end in sight.
There only 7 more blissful daylight hours till bedtime.