Ferberizing

A friend recently posed the question to me and Brian: "Which of you is the fat, gay guy?"
A strange inquiry, maybe. But we immediately understood the reference to one of our new favorite shows, Modern Family on ABC. The gay couple on the show, Cam and Mitchell, have an adopted baby girl that they were trying to sleep train on a recent episode. Like us, they were using the Ferber method
The hardest thing when "ferberizing" a baby is for the parents to resist going in to offer comfort. On the show, Cam (the fat one) was very bad about letting his daughter cry-it-out, while Mitchell was much more strict. While I don't think Brian and I fall into either extreme category all the time, I tend to be more of a "Cam" ... but Brian has his moments, too. It's not easy for either of us to listen to Ellie cry and not jump into action.

I have noticed that Brian's strict adherence to the Ferber rules seems to lessen in the middle of the night. I'm not being mean, honey, but at 4 a.m. you're more likely to advocate a quick fix to quiet Ellie and try to get everyone back to sleep. Unfortunately, the only way to really satisfy Ellie in the middle of the night is for me to nurse her... so I'm not as likely to get any more sleep. Probably because of this, I develop a thicker skin when we hear Ellie screaming in the early A.M. I can't see the clock without my contacts in, but I'll usually mumble something about letting her go for a few more minutes in the hope that she'll get back to sleep. As her cries get louder and angrier, Brian is quick to let me know it's been 15 minutes or whatever the number is.
As we discovered the other night, tired parents + baby screaming = argument between mom and dad... and no more sleep the rest of the night for anyone. Not a pretty picture.

By this age, Ellie is supposed to sleep around 12 hours at night. (One of the main reasons for accomplishing this is not a selfish desire for uninterrupted sleep, but so she's not used to a middle-of-the-night feeding that will hurt her teeth when they come in. And it's just not a good routine for her to be in.)
We know she can go that long between feedings because she does it sometimes. And on those days I feel like we've made progress in sleep training. "By George, I think she's got it!" I think. ... But then she'll wake up the next night (at least a couple times each week still) after 9 or 10 hours. Obviously that's still pretty good. And three months ago I would have declared a national holiday after such a feat. But when Ellie refuses to stay awake past 7 p.m. ... it's tough for us to start our day with her after "only" 9 or 10 hours. And I know she's still tired, even when she wakes up at 5 a.m., because after I nurse her she will go back to bed for at least an hour.
So, we will continue working on it. Probably not this weekend because we're going to visit family down in St. Louis. I don't think grandma and grandpa want to hear Ellie crying it out. And we have to offer a little leeway when we monkey with her schedule on the road. But hopefully we can really get down to business next week. That is, if we can overcome our inner "fat, gay guy."