Oops! I did it again!

Every fortnightly, I get banished to the hall to sleep by my husband Mark. My maid often thinks we must have quarreled when she finds me outside in the morning. In actual fact, I have been exiled there to prevent me from picking Alison up when she cries.

You know we do the crying out method for Ally. It works fine except that once in a while, she does wake up to cry at around midnight. I can usually bear with the crying for well, one over week. I have enough resolve not to pick her up and usually after a few minutes, Ally goes right back to sleep.

Just that somehow, after about two weeks of good behaviour, she will suddenly act up and cry a little longer than usual. That's when she actually makes vomitting noises too. That's when I usually cannot tahan and pick her up. You guessed it, somehow there's no vomit at all, just a very gleeful baby. By then, she is usually wide awake and plays for at least 2 hours.
Then the next night, becasue of this sudden inconsistency, she will cry even longer until she really vomits.

Mark says he cannot understand why I still pick her up if I know the effect of this "inconsistency". It only makes things worse for our Ah Boo Boo, and she suffers more.

I KNOW all that and I hate myself for picking her up too and putting her through more crying the next few days, just to get her back to her routine. But I CAN"T HELP IT. I don't know, deep down I always react instantly whenever she sounds like she is vomitting. Just in case she is in trouble. If she is and I didn't attend to her, I could never forgive myself.

According to Mark, I should know by now what her pattern is like and what her cries mean and so which one to react to. All the times I've picked her up were not necessary at all and only detrimental.

Hiyah. Anyway tonight Mark is getting me to sleep in the room with her and experience her prolonged crying close up to learn my lesson. He's sleeping outside. I pray she doesn't get up cos I am sure to pick her up. And the whole sleep training might have to start again. Blah.