"It is such a secret place, the land of tears..."

What? Is Ronan sleeping? No way!

So we finally did it. After a week of challenging sleep situations, sheer exhaustion won out. With aching hearts, we let Ronan "cry it out" on Thursday night. Ack, I can't believe I said that! It was really, really tough. To hear your baby wail and deliberately not do anything about it is heart-wrenching. Yet we had decided that, for Ronan's well-being, we needed to help him learn how to sleep. He no longer wanted to (or couldn't) go to sleep in our arms or by nursing. And we don't want him relying on a pacifier (which tends to fall out of his mouth like every 10 minutes during the night, making him cry). And the LONG nights of putting him to bed over and over and over again were taking a huge toll on us. So.... cry it out started to sound like one of our only options left.

Long story short: we think it's working!

Night 1: Christian stayed right next to him, so he wasn't alone. And guess what? He cried off and on for 30 minutes and then sucked his thumb till he fell asleep! The fine print is he only stayed asleep an hour before he woke up again (crying of course), but then he went down again for the night after a short meal.
Lessons learned: Dress him more warmly for the night! This was the first night of his whole life that he wasn't swaddled in his goldenrod blanket. We put him in his zippered sleep sack, but his hands and legs were cold.

Night 2: Due to explosive poop #125, there was no sleep sack for Ronan this night. So it goes. We dressed him in one of those footed, fuzzy PJ outfits and did the whole bedtime soothing routine of nursing, singing, and cuddling, and then lay him in his bed, awake but sleepy, around 8:00 pm. He cried off and on for a full hour (agonizing to listen to), and then -- fell asleep! It was sooo wonderful to see him unswaddled and free.... sprawled out all over his bed. He slept till 4 am this morning, when there was another Ronan quake.
Lessons learned: Poops wake him up. Diaper changes really wake him up. No way to get around that.

Night 3: That's tonight. So far, so good! We ran errands and went to Uncle Matt's 33rd birthday today, so the Ronan's naps were brief. He was exhausted by the time we got home. We nursed, cuddled, told him we love him... and left the room. He cried for 15 minutes and then... hallelujah.... sweet silence. Our Ronan was sleeping like an angel! It's now 10:30 and he's been down for 2 hours, without us in the room.
Lessons learned: Our Ronan is learning how to fall asleep and we're sooo happy for him!