Why do you call your daughter Little Bug? I know that is obviously not her real name, and thought maybe you wanted to protect her privacy. Is that the reason?

You nailed it on the head! Yes, my daughter is called “Little Bug” on the blog to protect her privacy. In this day and age, I just did not feel comfortable putting her real name on the blog. I also recently made some changes to the blog to make it more anonymous and to protect the privacy of my whole family. And just incase you are wondering, my real name is Elaine and my husband’s real name is Dave. I felt it was okay to use our real names as long as our last name isn’t on the blog. :)  

Do you have any ongoing contact with Little Bug’s birthmother or birthfather? Do they read your blog?

Our adoption was labeled “semi-open”. This means before Little Bug’s birth we were in constant contact with Little Bug’s birth mother, Tracy. I talked to Tracy on the phone, went with her to doctor appointments and Dave and I even took her to dinner one evening. I am forever grateful for this contact I had with Tracy before Little Bug’s birth simply because one day I can tell Little Bug all about my time with Tracy if and when she is ever interested in learning about her birth mother. I am also eternally grateful that I got a chance to know the woman who chose life for my daughter. We were in this constant contact with Tracy for 7 weeks. We never met Little Bug’s birth father during those 7 weeks.

After Little Bug’s birth the agreement was that I would send a letter with pictures to the agency for Tracy every 3 months for the first year of Little Bug’s life.

Because of certain circumstances that I just cannot disclose on an open blog like this, ongoing contact is not in the best interest of this particular adoption. (Little Bug’s birth family does not read this blog.) Every adoption is so different. Until reading blogs like Heart Cries, I really wasn’t even aware that open adoptions are becoming more and more common these days. I think open adoptions are a beautiful thing, but it is just not an option for my particular situation.

I do feel in my heart that I will one day reunite with Tracy. I have no clue if it will be in the near future or decades from now. She will forever hold a very special place in my heart and I find myself thinking about her and praying for her more than I ever thought I would before Little Bug’s birth.

Were you concerned about allowing Little Bug to cry it out in regards to attachment?

I am so glad this question was asked because there are so many misconceptions out there about letting a baby cry it out!

Sleep is a skill that must be learned. God naturally made our bodies to go through sleep cycles, adults and babies alike. Every 45 minutes or so a baby transitions from light sleep to deep sleep and often times wakes during these transitions. Adults do the same thing, but know how to get themselves back to sleep. Babies can learn this art too!

If a baby does not learn the art of putting self to sleep this scenario, or one very similar, inevitably happens: Baby is asleep. Baby transitions into deep sleep and wakes during the transition. Baby starts to cry. Mom mistakes waking as “baby must be hungry”. Baby suckles on bottle/breast for a little while and falls back to sleep only for this cycle to be repeated again soon. Baby soon learns that to sleep he/she needs the bottle, breast, paci or whatever else parents are doing to intervene to get baby back to sleep. The end result? You have a baby who does not get an uninterrupted night’s sleep, which is so important to the developing baby’s brain and a very tired mommy who is also not getting an uninterrupted night’s sleep. A baby who can self sooth back to sleep gives a precious gift to not only his Mom and Dad but to himself as well.

Let me clear the water right now on something! I am not saying everyone must let their baby cry it out! What I am saying is that each family must figure for themselves what works for their family. How you go about achieving uninterrupted sleep is up to you and your family.

I chose to teach Little Bug how to put herself to sleep and stay asleep by letting her cry it out.

Contrary to what some believe about letting a baby cry it out, I did not plop Little Bug in her crib one day and let her cry for hours on end until she fell asleep!

Choosing the cry it out method did not harm the attachment/bonding process between Little Bug and me because I did it in a very strategic, responsible way. Little Bug was 3 months old when I started sleep training her (letting her cry it out to learn to go to sleep and stay asleep). I already had Little Bug on the eat/play/sleep routine. When I saw her sleepy cues and knew she was needing a nap, I would go through the naptime routine with her (which at that time consisted of a diaper change, swaddling her, turning on her white noise sounds, telling her “night night, take a nap” and laying her in the crib drowsy. I set the stage for sleep to take over and I never (and when I say never, I mean never) laid her down for a nap if I thought there was any chance that she could be hungry, wet, sick, etc… and was crying for any other reason than being tried. If there was a possibility (even a slight possibly) that she was hungry or wet, she was given an opportunity to eat or had her diaper changed before being laid down. This way if she did cry I could be 100% confident her cries were cries of “I’m so sleepy.” and I would let her cry until she fell asleep, which typically was never more than 10-15 minutes when we were in the heat of sleep training. As a result, Little Bug gets between 10-11 hours of uninterrupted sleep during the night and takes two naps (ranging from 1 to 2.5 hours) during the day. Now that Little Bug has learned the art of sleeping, I can take her to her crib, lay her down and she may talk or whine for no more than 5 minutes and then she drifts off to sleep until time to wake up. I am not up during the night trying every trick in the book to get her to go back to sleep. She has learned the art of sleep and it is a beautiful thing for all of us!

I could go on and on about CIO and the benefits of having a baby who has learned the art of putting self to sleep and staying asleep! Feel free to ask even more questions about CIO if I haven’t covered your question already above!

- Elaine