January 22, 2006

I haven't posted in a while because we have been a bit busy the past couple of weeks. Last weekend, our church had our first Disciple Now weekend. For those of you who don't know what that is, it is a weekend of Bible Study, Worship, and fun for our youth. The kids had a blast. It took a lot of planning, but it was all worth it. Our friends from AL came down to lead worship for the weekend, and it was fantastic! You could not deny the presence of the Lord Saturday night and especially Sunday morning. Our pastor from back home also came and preached Saturday night and Sunday morning. I was exhausted the entire weekend, not only from the work of the weekend, but also from Silas not sleeping hardly at all during the night.
We have been dealing with this for a while now. I have to admit that we are having this problem because of me. It is my fault alone because I am the one who gets up when he cries and goes in to "check on him." I usually end up picking him up and rocking him back to sleep, which hardly ever works now. Nathan and I had tried many things to get him to sleep through the night, but none of them seemed to work. I think for a couple of weeks Silas wasn't feeling well and teething, so that made for a tough time at night. Last Saturday night, however, Nathan and I had reached our limit. Something had to give. I cannot have two babies waking up during the night, so we had to get Silas on the right track before the new baby comes this summer.
I decided to try something different. Sunday night, instead of putting the gate in the hallway, I put it in the doorway of Silas's room. Nathan and I determined that we were going to let Silas cry it out no matter what. It was going to be hard, for me especially, but necessary for Nathan and my sanity. So it began. I put Silas to bed and, of course, he didn't go to sleep immediately. I left the room and let him cry it out, which only took about 5 minutes thankfully. I thought to myself, "Ok, I can do this. Surely he will sleep more tonight because of the busy weekend." Well I was wrong. Silas woke up two or three, maybe even four, times that night, but luckily he only cried for about 5 minutes or so. Each time he woke up he would cry out, "Momma, Momma," in that pitiful cry that makes you want to run in and save them. BUT I had to be strong and let him figure it out on his own. We have done this the entire week, and it has seemed to work. Nathan and I have gotten more sleep than we have in weeks. Last night was the real test because he woke up at 1:30am crying, then again at 3:00am and cried off and on for about an hour. At that point, I had to check on him. I went in to check on him, and twenty minutes later he was asleep, so I thought. I wasn't in the bed long when he woke up and started crying again. He only cried for a few minutes then went back to sleep.
Hopefully he will get better and better in the next few months.