OK, so I caved. Four A.M. arrived and with it the tiny, tentative bleating of a waking baby. I did the math in my sleep: Ferberize her now, and both of us might be awake til dawn. Nurse her fast and both of us would be back in bed, sleeping, until the civilized hour of 7 A.M. No brainer. I rolled out of bed, dozed through a sub-ten-minute feeding, and crawled back under the covers. But when I awoke at 7 to our two year old’s screeching from the next room, “Mommy, where arrreeee you?” I couldn’t help it. I felt like a floozy. (Who uses that word anymore?) Maisy had barely cried and there I was—Mama Pushover.
But hey, it’s not sleep training without a bad case of second-guessing, self-doubt, and a profound loss of will. And deep down, I suspect something else is going on: I think I'm supposed to wait for it. I have a hunch that if I give Maisy a chance, back in her own bed without a cross-country flight on the calendar for at least a few weeks, that she might find her her own natural sleep rhythm again. This could be wishful thinking, but it does go along with my New Year's mantra for 2011: trust what emerges. Good things are going to happen—I just have to pay attention so that I don't space them out when they do. So tonight at least I'm going to trust the emergence. Maybe she'll sleep through, maybe she won't. But I'm going to let the unfolding begin.
Wish me luck.
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