April 12, 2001 - Thursday
Last night was not good. Harry was awake from something like 11:30pm until around 2:45am and so were we. We tried giving him milk (thinking he might be hungry after a poor showing at dinner), infant Tylenol (on the chance the he was teething or still suffering from a recent cold), and compassion (laying with him and singing), but little worked. My theory is that he had been asleep long enough - from 8:00-11:30pm - when he woke up and that he was, therefore, rested and ready to go. He played along well while we held him and sang, quietly and graciously listening. But when the songs stopped, so did the graciousness.

Harry did a very similar thing this past Saturday/Sunday night and I have to wonder how much of it is him just wanting some action and having learned that crying generally achieves that. During the days we've started to try "time outs" of sorts in an effort to temper that behavior, and it seems like letting Harry find his own way at night is necessary now as well. Last night, after almost three hours of comforting between his mother and me, I put Harry in his crib and went to bed. He cried for about twenty minutes more, off and on, but eventually feel asleep. Indeed, it seems that once he realized it wasn't working, his commitment to crying diminished. Somehow, it's just not easy to ignore him when he sounds in pain. I think we need to be trained as much as he does.


Comments, opinions?