to cry or not to cry....

I am not a woman who can listen to my children cry. It sends me over the edge. When they cry, I cease to have any ability to think or, for that matter, function. Driving in the car is second to crying before falling asleep. No woman on the road is safe when he child is crying. She is so distracted that her mind can only think of two things, "should I pull over and nurse/feed?" or "how long will it take me to get home if I drive 15 miles over the speed limit?" followed by, "will I be able to get out of the ticket with my child screaming?".

Lily is 6 months today and by all means, size, and age, she should be able to go 10 hrs without eating. I know she can do it b/c she has done it before. Since and during vacation, we seem to have take a large leap backwards resulting in several wake-ups throughout the night.

I am fine with one wakeup. I seem to function quite well on a little amount of sleep. What I don't function well on is my child taking an hr to two hrs to fall back asleep. It drives me MAD. Literally, I feel like I'm losing my cool. And patience is something I feel like I'm good at.

I have issues with letting my child cry-it-out (CIO). I do not think that it harms a child. I CIO at 3 months and I trust my mother, do not feel abandoned and function like a normal adult. What I have issue with is listening to it. I let eloise CIO one night at 8 months for 20 minutes. For her it didn't work. She woke about 12 times after that. Her issue was learning not to eat in the middle of the night. Lily, on the other hand, is more difficult.

I have no idea what her problem is at this point. I've eliminated all but one feed, which I'm fine with at the moment, but she is rolling over and hating to be on her tummy when she wakes up. Plus, she takes a binki and can't quite figure out how to get it back in or how to sleep with it in.

Most mothers say to me that i just need to let her cry. That's fine. I KNOW it works for some babies, but they say it as if they put their child to bed and go watch a movie. It seems so easy for them. Or they turn off the monitor so they can't hear them. I could NEVER do that. My fear of something happening to them haunts me. I don't think these woman are heartless, I have many friends who have done it. And I know they love their children very much and hate to listen to it. I just don't know what mother gene I missed to be able to, sorry to use these terms, "get some balls" and do this!

I feel hopeless. I don't even feel like praying about it because I'm sure God is annoyed by it. Every night I'm praying for mercy, "just one more hour...please". Dave is extremely frustrated with the situation too and it results in us being agitated with one another when we aren't even the ones with the problem!

I have not made a decision yet and that is what drives me crazy. I'm secretly hoping the issue will resolve itself. Our family will function better when sleep is normal.