*Deep breath* Here we go ... Day 1: Friday night

I figured I'd blog about the "Cry It Out" weekend since it's such a HUGE event for me. I've been dreading having to do this, and I have had no qualms letting anyone that will listen know how I don't want to do it but know that we need to. This may be my longest blog ever ... seriously.

• 4:30pm - Pick up Claire from daycare. Usually I get her about 6:00, but knowing what is about to take place tonight, I figure an extra hour of play will do both of us some good. Well, at least me. I find out when I pick her up that she has not taken her later afternoon nap. Uh-oh.
• 5:30pm - Claire and I fall asleep together cuddled up on the chaise (our favorite sleeping-together place) after playing for the last hour. I figure this is like a last hurrah and it'll only last her typical 30-minutes, so no big deal.
• 7:15pm - We wake up from our marathon nap. Whoops. Hmm ... I wonder how this will impact the rest of the night's agenda. At least we're up in time for our normal dinner time! Since a lot of the literature I've read says that you should delay your bedtime ritual the first night until the time the baby usually falls asleep, we'll play until 9:00 (when she usually falls asleep in my arms).
• 9:00pm - Bath, books, bottle, cuddling. Whole thing takes about 45 minutes, and this is when she falls asleep in my arms, right? Nope. Little girl is happy, perky, jabbering, and in no way ready for bed. Yikes.
• 10:20pm - A yawn! Okay, this is it ... directions are to place her in her bed, sleepy but not asleep, so that she can associate going to sleep and not just waking up there. We can do this ... *deep breath!* ... down she goes and ... she looks up and smiles at us! What?! Will it be that easy? James and I head to the living room to start the night.
• 10:25pm - The crying starts, plaintively at first. Watching from our video monitor, we can tell that it's that coy mewing where she says "wah-wah" but is taking glances at the video monitor to make sure we're watching. She's working her way around her crib, rolling, rocking, on her back, on her stomach, on her knees, on her feet, head down, head up; our little gymnast/monkey is telling us she does not want to be there. I start my timer -- 5 minutes.
• 10:30pm - Timer goes off, but we're already heading into her room to pat her on the back and tell her how much we love her because I've been watching the timer tick down the last two minutes. She immediately stops crying and waits patiently for us to pick her up. We stick by the plan and head back out after a minute or two of soothing.
• 10:32pm - The crying starts again, this time in earnest. I think she was surprised that we actually left the room instead of taking her with us! I start the timer -- 10 minutes.
• 10:42pm - We go back in again to pat her on the back and tell her how much we love her. Again, she stops crying when we enter the room and looks at us in anticipation. She's definitely tiring and seems to almost fall asleep on my hand that I put on her arm to pat her. Still, we stick by our plan and head back out, this time turning down the A/C a degree because she seems to be sweating with all that crying.
• 10:43pm - Wailing starts, long and loud. My stomach clenches, I turn off the audio on the monitor, and I turn up the TV.
• 10:54pm (11 minutes into our 15 minutes) - The crying slows and turns into her blah-blah-blahing noises that she makes before she falls asleep each night. It's her way of telling me each night that she'd rather stay up than fall asleep; I think she's say "noooo ... nooo ... I don't wanna go to bed!" right before she passes out. A secret? It's pretty close to what I do when I'm rolling around in bed on nights that I can't fall asleep either; like mother, like daughter. I think the last time that happened was sometime around the week before Claire was born ... has it really been 7 months since I've had a full night's sleep?!
• 10:56pm (13 minutes into our 15 minutes) - Deep breathing and ... silence?!
• 10:57pm (34 seconds later) - Timer goes off to let us know we can go comfort her, but -- guess what? -- we don't need to because she's asleep. Wowsers.
• 11:00pm - I get nervous because it's too quiet, it seemed so easy, and I start thinking that maybe she passed out instead of falling asleep. Or she can't breathe because she's face down. I turn up the monitor all the way to try and hear her breathing. I think I hear a hiccup and relax.
• 11:02pm - I sneak into her room through the jack-n-jill bath to adjust the monitor so that I can see the back of her head because she has fallen asleep with her head jammed into the corner just out of view. That's better.
• 11:03pm - The back of her head isn't good enough. I sneak into her room further and use my iPhone flashlight to make sure I can see her back rising and falling and that her nose is unobstructed. Her face is pressed into the nubby yarns of her blanket, but I'm pretty sure she's okay. I restrain from touching her at all.
• 11:18pm - I turn the monitor all the way up again to make sure she's breathing, but the music in her room is louder than her breathing. I debate on whether to go turn her head. I decide not to do it; why chance waking her up?
• 11:55pm - Still sleeping. I realize I should probably go to sleep instead of waiting up and watching the monitor because if she wakes up in the middle of the night - like she's wont to do around 2am - I might need some sleep to do this over again!

• 12:00 Midnight - Claire stirs and starts crying. I swear I didn't do anything. I've been sitting here on the couch working on my blog updates! I wait a little while to see if it's going to persist, then start the timer -- 5 minutes.
• 12:03am (3 minutes into the 5 minutes) - She settles back down and appears to fall back asleep. I think I'll leave the timer running down anyways (I know, I know, I'm weak). BTW, James has been asleep on the couch next to me for about 30 minutes now. Lucky guy, though I don't know how he does it!
• 12:07 - Timer goes off, but she's asleep so I keep blogging. [For future reference, if you're working on two blogs at the same time and upload pictures to one, don't be surprised if the pictures show up on the second one instead!]
• 12:30am - Still asleep. I finish posting Claire's latest blog update and continue uploading pictures to Ofoto and videos to YouTube (which is SOOO slow, btw). I have a ton of them I'm planning on uploading this weekend, although if I don't end up going to sleep like I should, I might just finish them tonight!
• 12:45am - Claire wakes up. I know this because I have been watching the video monitor even as I'm watching TV (love "Psych"; so funny!) and post captions on pictures I just uploaded. But no crying ensues, so no timer needed! Less than a minute later, it appears as though she's back asleep.
• 12:55am - Head moving again, but - again - no crying. So why aren't I asleep?!
• 1:30am - Okay, I finished my "Psych" episode, I can hear her breathing (though she's still sleeping face down), I've finished captioning the pictures I added tonight, and my last video is uploading now. Guess I'll try to get some winks!
• 1:45am - Claire just cried out a couple of times and turned in her crib. Now I can't see her head again! Sheesh. We're getting close to her usual "waking at 2am for a few minutes" time. We'll see how this goes. Oh, and yes, I'm still awake. Debbie's up so we're emailing back and forth.
• 1:59am - For real crying out now, a bit plaintively. She's looking around for us and wondering what in the world is going on. I start the timer -- 5 minutes.
• 2:02am (3 minutes into our 5 minutes) - She activates the crib toy, "Blue hippo! <>". She stops crying to check out her noisemaker and then resumes crying out but not actually crying.
• 2:04am - Timer goes off, but James (who has woken up) and I debate whether to go in since she's not crying anymore. We decide to wait.
• 2:06am - The "nooooo .... nooooo .... don't wanna fall asleep" noises are back. I'm hoping this means she's falling back asleep. Just three more hours until I allow myself to go to her and feed her!
• 2:11am - Silence. Trying to decide whether I should go turn the video again so that I can see her. I decide that I should try to sleep instead, and even if I do fix the camera, she'll probably just turn around again anyways.
• 2:30am - Sigh, still awake. Got distracted looking for Claire's Halloween costume and watching a documentary about Nike (swoosh!).
• 3:00am - Okay, going to sleep (I guess now it's just take a nap). For real. Honestly. Since we decided to camp out on the couch this weekend, all I need to do is CLOSE THE LAPTOP NOW. Okay, okay, here I go ...
• 4:35am - Up again, some crying again. I start the timer -- 5 minutes.
• 4:39am (3 minutes into our 5 minutes) - Blah-blah-blahing. Let's go past our 5 minutes and see.
• 4:41am - Quiet ... sleep!
• 6:10am - Crying again. We give it a couple of minutes but decide that this time sounds more like true "I'm hungry!" calls.
• 6:14am - Bottle is made, and James heads into the room while I watch on the monitor. The cries intensify when she sees Daddy walk through the door and immediately stop when he picks her up.
• 6:18am - Nothing to watch because Baby is out of the frame.
• 6:20am - Here comes James with (awake) baby in one hand and bottle in the other. No interest in eating, huh? We confer on what to do. Put her back in her crib? But is she ready to get up? What if she falls asleep? Claire cuddles while we get analysis-paralysis.
• 6:40am - Now we figure it's late enough to just stay up (not that 6:20 wasn't but 6:40 really does make sense). James takes Claire to her room to play, and I pass out on the couch.
• 7:30am - Claire's back, she's stayed up, and now I'm up, too. I declare last night a great success! Now to figure out what to do during the day ... I never read that far in the books on what to do with naps. Hahaha. Well, even if I mess this one up, it's the poor daycare that gets to deal with the aftermath on most days (sorry, girls)!

The final tally:

• Time to sleep: 28 minutes
• Times woken up in night: 4 (not counting actual waking time)
• Times we had to go in at night: 0 <-- ZERO!

Tonight: 10-15-20 min intervals! I'm not dreading it as much as I did last night, but I'm definitely curious how it'll turn out!