“Bad mum”lets baby cry to sleep

Angie Cui Post in baby,Life,motherhood,newborn,parenting

To be honest, I don’t know where to start, but I’ve taken the hardest decision yesterday to let my baby boy JJ cry alone on the bed until he fell asleep.

I still don’t know what to do, still not sure if I have made a good decision. Everyone at home has been really supportive, although they were the ones spoiled my kid by cuddling and rocking him to sleep in the past 3 months since his birth, especially my dear husband Tom 😪

It wasn’t easy for us since the pregnancy, since the birth. We have no families in Australia at all, me (Angie) from north-eastern of China and my husband (Tom) from Bangladesh, we came here as international students, then fell in love, got residency and built our own home after 5 years of hard working, now we have our little one baby JJ (Jayden), who has brought bundles of joy in our life. We love him so much, he is so adorable and joyful.

In the first month of Jayden’s birth, Tom wanted me to catch up with some sleep, thus he cuddled him to sleep, JJ was crying over and over as we figured out that my breastmilk wasn’t sufficient for a big baby like him. I didn’t know what to do, I called hospital midwife hotline, I wasn’t sure if I should give my baby formula. I was crying to the midwife over the phones: “I am worried if my baby can hold on that long period of time”. Well later we didn’t offer him formula, and in fact, he lost 11% of his birth weight. When he was born, he was like 3.7kg, which caused me the worst 4th-degree tear (his hand was on his face when he came out, so I had done surgery to repair after birth). Both me and Tom can never forget that night, we were cuddling him, watching our baby crying for food and crying on the sofa.

Later on, the story was my parents finally came and helped us with cooking and some cleaning, most of the time, they helped me to look after JJ so that I can get some sleep. In the beginning, JJ wasn’t bad to sleep on his own, after feeding I just left him on the bed, he played for a moment, then fell asleep. but afterwards, lots of cuddles were given by my parents, they also rocked his cradle to make him sleep. I am not saying my parents were doing a wrong thing, they were just trying to help me. I had a good rest and provided sufficient breastmilk for JJ. It’s just that’s how the bad habit continued. Then after that, my parents left, in-laws came, more and more cuddling and cradle rocking happened. JJ wasn’t sleeping on his own both day and night at all. I normally don’t cuddle him to sleep, but since he got spoiled by all of them, so now I gotta handle the consequences……😪

It has been almost 15 weeks, JJ grows so fast, he is a good baby, he doesn’t give us a hard time unless something is wrong, like more feeds, dirty nappy, or burp etc. I didn’t want to put him on bed and cry alone to sleep, it’s just heartbreaking Yesterday afternoon, I went back to the bedroom and found him was so quiet and eyes opened, for 1 sec, I thought he was dead, so I screamed then of course I freaked him out, after that another non-stop crying…

Now again, I just have to continue this mission, I guess. And next door, JJ is still crying, pausing then talking with himself, then back to crying…….. then maybe or finally falling asleep.

I don’t know how long I have to do this, I don’t like to do this to him at all. I know lots of mum have done this, lots of successful stories, they say it’s better to do it when they are young, it’s hard but will pay off. But the thing is should I be tough to my baby really? My first one, my number 1. Is it too harsh to use this to make him independent? I don’t know, maybe short-term pain long term gain, I know we can see some improvements on his sleep since yesterday, he is sleeping more than before, and he can adjust and self-control if he had bad dreams, but it just tortures me to listen his crying and screaming…………I just wish this torture will end soon…

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