A Mother's Guilt...

Just about every night I feel bad, guilty. (Like right now) I just know my blood pressure is rising as every second passes, with every second my son cries at bedtime. He fights sleep, especially at bedtime. We finally have ironed out daytime naps. During the day I can put him in his crib, turn on all 3 music sources and hand him a book. He will fuss for like a minute. But as soon as I close the door I can hear him talking and singing. But he is still fighting sleep at night. He usually cries (screams really) for anywhere from 5-15 minutes. And from the second I close his door to the second he drifts off (HA) to sleep I stay tense, feel so guilty. What makes it worse is the knowledge that I could easily stop his crying by just going up there and getting him. (*sigh* he just went to sleep)

He is just a sleep fighter. I have been there and watched it While we were at the beach this past summer I would lay next to him every night as he went to sleep. Even with me lying right next to him, whispering in his ear, rubbing his tummy or leg he would lay there with his eyes squeeezed tight, screaming until he went to sleep. It was insane. It IS insane. We did have a few weeks along the way where he went to bed at night very easily. But we are back to fighting it.

At least there haven't been any other repeats of the night of Mother's Guilt of Major Proportions. Jed has gotten in the habit of waking about an hour after going to sleep. One night I was helping my step-daughter and he woke up about 30 minutes after initially going to sleep. Just the day before my mom had told me he had actually gone BACK to sleep when she left him in bed after waking. I figured it wouldn't hurt. Well he cried, he screamed and he was just easing up, starting to drift off when I just had a *feeling* that I really needed to check on him. When I went into his room I saw that he had thrown-up. The very first time that I did not immediately get him from waking happened to also be the very first time he had ever thrown up. I felt like the WORST MOTHER EVER!

I know what we are doing is the right thing especially since I really don't want to still be rocking him to sleep when he is 10 years old. But it doesn't stop me for feeling just a little bit guilty and it doesn't make those 5-15 minutes of crying any easier...