Making a Rule, Breaking It Twice

As I mentioned before, William often goes down for naps crying. There are occasional, blissful moments when he falls asleep in our arms while we are carrying him around, but those are few and far in between. Crying after being placed in his crib to sleep has been the norm.

Adoptive parents out there probably read these words with shock and horror. "You let your child cry it out in order to fall asleep?!" After all, research shows that doing so does not promote the best adoptive child-parent attachment. Building trust in the early months is the goal of every adoptive family and not responding to a child immediately after s/he cries is arguably one way to engender distrust.

With Andrew, Craig and I took a CIO (cry-it-out) approach. The boy couldn't fall asleep unassisted without loud wailing. Yet, any attempts to soothe him only over-stimulated him and made him cry even harder. In the beginning of our CIO attempts, he'd cry for 45 minutes to an hour, hardly happy listening for anyone, especially a first-time parent. Thankfully, the exercise eventually paid off and he learned to fall asleep on his own without a whimper. His improved sleep definitely paid off in the happier child he became when awake.

With William, we initially took a firm anti-CIO stance. There are so many things out of our control as parents, especially as adoptive parents, that we wanted to make sure we did everything we could to promote healthy bonding. However, we've had to bend that rule a bit. We've noticed that when William starts to cry, all the rocking, shushing, swaying, and singing in the world often seems to work against his falling asleep; he just cries louder.

In addition, we want him to learn how to fall asleep on his own, awake but drowsy. This is something the adoptive medicine pediatricians at CHOP stressed. So, into the crib he goes, crying or not. If he does the "Ehhhh... I'm sleepy" cry, we leave him be. If he goes off on a full-throttle, "I can't stop myself from crying" wail, we pick him up, walk him around a bit, then put him down, even if he's still crying. We sit in the rocking chair next to his crib so he can see us if he chooses to lift his head above the crib bumper. We also try to reassure him with words, though oftentimes he can't hear us if he's crying. Our CHOP doctors are supportive of our methods.

Still, to listen to your child cry and to consciously not do anything to assuage him is a horrible, horrible experience. Sometimes when William is crying, I put on Andrew's lawnmower headphones (he's quite sensitive to noise) to take the edge off the piercing cries. It's slightly more tolerable that way. And happily, the crying has decreased over time; whereas we would sometimes get about 15 minutes of crying (I know some parents, especially biological ones, would say this is hardly a lot), we're down to just a few minutes or even none at all.

There are those who would accuse me of being a terrible mother for letting this happen. However, I am a firm believer in the necessity of sleep, both for the child and for the parent. We both need to be well-rested in order to deal patiently, lovingly, and joyfully with one another. And in the end, isn't a home where patience, love, and joy thrive the best environment in which to grow a trusting child?