To cry or not to cry, that is the question

It feels a little cliche to even write this post, but the question of crying, and more specifically, how much crying is considered too much, is bothering me.

First of all, I think we got off really lucky. Both Oscar and Judah aren't huge criers. They both really only let 'er rip when they need something in the vein of food, a diaper change, or a big 'ol burp. Or at least that used to be the case. Their schedule consisted of mostly sleep in between feeding frenzies, so there just wasn't much crying going on. But now they have started to wake up and see the world, and since they can't yet use their impressive vernacular that was genetically gifted, they have to cry to communicate.

And cry they do. As we have started keeping them awake and hanging out with them more, we have noticed a litany of different cries. There is the grumpy, "I think you guys are jerks for letting me lay here" cry. There is the angry "Hey, why haven't you noticed I have a load in my pants?!" cry. There is "THE GODDAMN IT, FEED ME RIGHT NOW" cry. And, of course, my personal favorite, the "I cannot believe you lazy assholes are checking your email while I am crying" cry. Not only can we differentiate between the types of fits, we can also begin to tell whose cry is whose. Judah has a very unique catch during his cry that almost sounds like a sneeze, while Oscar's cry is more an rhythmic wail.

Regardless of the brand of crying going on, my big agony these days is how much to let them cry before we cater to them. There are so many schools of thought on the subject, my head is spinning. One perspective is that babies have needs, they cry for a reason, and that you should always pick them up. In other words, you can't spoil a baby. My brother told me about some study of Africa children in some tribe that are literally carried around for two full years by members of their village. My response is that may very well be the case, but what about the parents? Doesn't their sanity count for anything? And how the heck is that supposed to play out with twins. I realize it takes a village to raise a child, but how am I supposed to carry twins around all the damn time? What about when I have to pee? Or make dinner? Or do something really important, like put on mascara?!

Another school of thought was advocated by my night nurse, who was basically a sleep Nazi. She believed that children could be spoiled from the moment they were born, and that it was a parent's obligation to train the child, and not the other way around. So she was very pushy with me to establish firm boundaries with picking up and holding a crying baby. She insisted the boys get on a firm schedule right away and pushed them to sleep through the night by doing a fair bit of ignoring their crying. She was so zen about it. One night I poked my head in the nursery to discover both boys screaming their brains out with her sitting in the dark in there, no tv, no lights, waiting for them to calm down. I swear, I don't think a deaf person could do what she was doing. But she firmly believed that babies needed to cry both for exercise, expression, and to know who was boss.

At first, I really resisted this approach because I agree that at a certain age, babies just have basic requirements that need to be met and they can't be spoiled. So for the first six or seven weeks Oscar and J.J. were alive, I picked them up whenever I could, fed them basically on demand, changed a diaper when it was just slightly damp, and did a lot of rocking to sleep. And I basically ignored my night nurse's strict instructions on what to do to get the babies to sleep through the night, to get on a schedule etc. I figured I didn't really care whether they were on a schedule as long as I had her coming every night to carry them blissfully away at 10 p.m. for Brent and I to crawl into bed for an uninterrupted 10 hours of sleep unknown to most new parents. But as Portia's tenure starting drawing to its woeful conclusion, I figured I better start working on this sleeping through the night thing. Which meant I had to address the crying thing too. Portia had the following rules to do things "her way."

1. Keep the boys awake from 6:00 - 9:00 p.m. Let 'em cry their bloody brains out during this time. As she described it, "they just need to work it out." The thinking behind this was that it would make them really tired to cry during this very common grumpy time for babies. So, Brent and I made up our minds to let them go ahead and cry right through dinner. And guess what, it still sucks, but it has stopped being so agonizing. A glass of wine helps immensely.

2. Get them dressed in nightgowns and fed before she arrives. Honestly, I think she just wanted them ready to crash when she got here. But it was a good nighttime routine for them and they like it now.

3. Once they demonstrate that they can make it six hours, don't let them go less. In other words, once they sleep until 5:00 a.m., don't feed them before that no matter how much they cry during the night. This tenant has caused me a lot of angst. Portia told us to turn off the monitor and let them go. She said to resist picking them up or comforting them for any reason and there was some discussion of "breaking them." This made me feel really terrible and scared. Was I seriously expected to ignore a screaming child with the purpose of breaking their seven week old will? But knowing how much I love my sleep and keeping Portia's promises of well behaved babies in mind (especially knowing a few that she helped take care of), I figured I would try it for a night or two, with the comforting knowledge that no baby ever died of crying.

So we did it her way. And of course, within three nights the boys were sleeping from 10:00 p.m. until 5:00 a.m. And now, at 10 weeks old, they are sleeping from 9:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m. There are still a few crying jags at night sometimes, from Judah-bear especially, but I basically wake up when I hear him, stay awake for about 10 minutes to see if he goes back to sleep and usually, the next thing I know, it is morning and both boys have slept peacefully through the night.

But even with the tangible success that we have had, I still have loads of worry and guilt. What if they are crying their guts out up in the nursery while I slumber restfully away in my bed downstairs? What if they are crying because something is wrong, like a poopy diaper, or worse, a fever? What if I am doing them irreparable emotional damage by letting them cry without comfort - will they feel abandoned by women the rest of their lives?

These and other questions just torment me as I listen to their crying both during the day and at night. The guilt is further highlighted when other caregivers come over (grandparents in particular) who can't stand to hear the boys cry and give me mournful looks when I instruct them to let them cry rather that pick them up for a cuddle. I feel like a wretched, evil parent.

I think the answer that I have come up with to help me sleep at night (literally and figuratively) is to try and walk a middle path. I let the boys cry as much as I can stand, but I pick them up lots of times too. I am sure I am sending them some kind of confusing psychological mixed message that lots of experts would disagree with, but it seems to be working for us. These boys are loved to bits, even if we do let their lungs get a bit of a workout.