I have learned a few things along the way and expect that trend to continue for quite some time. One of the things I have learned is that even at almost 7 weeks old she is quite old enough to hold a grudge and plot revenge. Case in point, we decided to try letting her "cry it out" the other night, hoping she'd self soothe. We knew we had covered all the bases...food, clean diaper, dry outfit, comfortable temperature, etc...so off went the monitor (we could still hear the wailing through both doors). We lay there listening and in our minds saying, "Any moment now she'll just drift right off to dreamland".
We let it go on for about 12 minutes, which seemed liked much longer and maybe it was. I knew our experiement had failed miserably when her cries went from the basic whaaaa, whaaaa to blood curtiling, vein popping, lung searing screams. I got up and went to check, half expecting to find some huge 4 headed monster tearing the legs off our precious little girl (that's how bad her crying had sounded). But alas there was no monster, just a very pissed off little girl.
I picked her up and started to rock and soothe and she began her assault. I decided to check her diaper, since that was the most logical reason for her not being happy. I laid her on the changing table and opened her up and sure enough it was dirty...or I should say SLIGHTLY dirty, certainly not enough to cause a meltdown.
Diaper changed, still crying I went to scoop her back up and here came the second phase of her attack. The spit-up started slow and I leaned down to pick up the burp cloth and when I looked back the whole front of her outfit was wet and white. It had been pink. NO BIG DEAL, I'll just swap outfits real quick...
Phase 3 of her plan came right after I got the new outfit all buttoned up, which when your child is screaming and writhing around is no easy task. This attack came at the "other end" and it was much more worthy of the before mentioned meltdown. Oddly enough it had the opposite effect and somewhat soothed her...now we were back to the whaaaa, whaaaa's.
I got that all cleaned up and started to scoop her up again and I don't know if it was just a little residue left from Phase 2 of her attack or a seperate phase all together but she spit up again. So, on goes outfit #3 of the night and once again there is an explosion down below.
After all that I get her scooped up into my arms, which is where I foolishly thought she'd just drift off to sleep peacefully when I first entered the nursery 15 minutes prior. I start rocking back and forth, back and forth and I seem to be the only one soothed by this motion. FINALLY her eyes start getting heavy so I tiptoe over to the crib and literally just THINK about trying to put her down and ONE eye opens and gives me a look that says, "Don't even try it...remember what we just went through?"
I step back from the crib and the eye closes and I feel her go limp...she's asleep? Are you kidding me? I give it a few extra moments of rocking and patting, slowly easing off so I don't just stop cold. I ease her into the crib and sure enough she's alseep. Ahhhhhhhh!
So, the moral of this tale is that even at 7 weeks old revenge is part of their thought process and they really don't like to be left to "cry it out". Don't worry though, she may have won that battle...but we will perservere and try again and eventually WE will win the war.
I'll close with some pictures of our little angel, taken at a much happier time for her...and me!
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