Crying, crying, crying!

Well I'm officially that mean Mom that makes her babies cry it out in the hopes that they will sleep through the night. We did it with Ashton a few times throughout the first year and it really worked within a couple nights. With him it was more not wanting to fall asleep at night, so we'd let him cry till he did (which wasn't ever very long). He slept through the night really early on, but would every once in awhile go through stages of not wanting to go to bed, so we'd let him cry and within a couple nights he was right back to sleeping well. With Gunnar, he goes to bed every night really easily right around 9:00 and for awhile he was sleeping longer and longer stretches-even 8 hours once or twice, but then gradually he has started waking up more and more to where he's up every 2-3 hours again! And of course wanting to eat every time. Well I think he's just gotten into a bad habit, so a couple nights ago I decided that I would try to let him cry it out because eventually he needs to learn how to put himself back to sleep when he wakes up in the night and to me sooner is better than later and everything I read says that they don't really need to be eating during the night at this age and my doctor has told me the same. So that night he slept till about 2:00, then woke up. Normally I would have gotten him up and fed him, then put him back down. But I just went in and rubbed his back and turned his music on and left. He immediately started crying, but really only cried for 10 minutes or so and was back asleep, then woke up again at 4:00 and did the same thing, then slept till 6:00. So I was encouraged that it wouldn't be too hard. Then the next night, he went down a little later around 9:45 and slept till 4:00, so I got more encouraged. Then last night was HORRIBLE! He went down at 9:00 and woke up around 12:30 and cried and cried and cried for a good hour at which point I couldn't take it anymore. It was breaking my heart to listen to him and imagine how he felt, wondering where I was and feeling abandoned by me. So I finally got up and fed him, then he woke up once more before waking up for the day around 7:00. I was so frustrated when I finally gave in and fed him that I sat there crying myself. Then this morning Ashton woke up in one of his bad moods asking for Daddy, and when I told him that he had already gone to work his mood got even worse and he started telling me that he didn't want me and wanted me to go away etc..., so I cried again! Needless to say our day didn't start out too well. At times like these I have to remind myself that Ashton is only 3 and that I can't take everything he says so seriously. It still makes me sad though. I think back to days when he only wanted me. I was the one he wanted to put him to bed and to kiss his owies when he hurt himself. I guess maybe he feels abandoned by me at times too now that we have Gunnar. Some days it's so hard to balance the time between them.

I had to take Ashton to the doctor this afternoon because his belly-button is all red and infected looking...it's been that way for 6 weeks or so (because he started picking at it), but really started looking bad the past few days, so I decided it needed to be looked at. Anyway the doctor said it's not really infected, but that it could be eczema or psoriasis and prescribed some cream to try on it. We had been putting neosporin on it, but he informed me that we probably made it worse by doing that. So if the cream doesn't clear it up in a few days we go back to try plan B-whatever that is.
So while we were there, I asked him about Gunnar crying it out and how long I could really safely let him cry. He said that I could let him cry for 2-3 hours if I could stand it, but that by going in after letting him cry for an hour just made it worse (which I already knew) because then he thinks eventually I'll come in if he just keeps crying. So last night I took a step back and now I have mixed feelings about it. I know that if I stick with it and don't cave in, it will probably work within a week, but it's so hard. He is sooooo stubborn and does not give up and it's so hard to listen to him crying so hard! And I was shocked that Ashton slept through it all...maybe he really didn't sleep too well and that was part of his bad mood this morning.
Anyway on a brighter note, he had another kickball game tonight and he actually participated in most of the game! So we're making progress there. What he really wanted to do was play with my friend's little girl's pom-pom's (that she had brought to cheer on her little brother), so she kept promising him he could use them if he would go kick the ball! Whatever works I guess.
I don't know what I'll do tonight when the crying starts, but I do know I could use lots of prayers for patience and prayers that God will help me to do whatever is best.