Training Mom and Dad

Have you ever dreaded something, but you knew that when you DID do it it would make everything easier? Then, you're sitting there thinking, Geez, why didn't I do this sooner?

You have?

Me, too!

For the past few months, the boys haven't been sleeping very well. They'd wake up an hour, four hours or six hours into their nighttime sleep and just want to be held. Sometimes they were having trouble breathing because their noses were stuffed up. Other times, they were hungry and wanted a bottle. And other times, they were teething and just wanted to be held. They didn't want to be put back down, either. So that meant I was spending most nights on the couch with both boys just to be sure they were getting sleep. Even if mommy wasn't.

Well, a few weeks of this and I was exhausted. Andy was, too. He'd help me through the night, often taking one of the boys so we could each concentrate on just one. When we finally had enough, we had a conversation about we could do to solve our problem. (Here's a hint, ladies: if you want a solution, talk to your husband! They're WIRED to create solutions to our problems!)

We decided that it was time to just let them cry it out. No one likes to hear their babies cry, but we knew that if they didn't sleep, we weren't going to either. Besides, a parent grows to know what her baby needs by the type of cry they make; there's no mistaking a painful cry, or a frustrated one that says, "Hey, my leg is stuck!" We had let them cry it out when they were babies, but their sleeping patterns seem to change drastically around six months. Suddenly, we had become too soft for our own good. I would run in to pick them up at the slighted sound, if not just to save any sanity I had and allow my husband to get some rest.

We waited until they were completely healthy and drew out a specific game plan. We'd wait for that I-just-can't-take-it-anymore cry, go in to console them, and put them back down. We wait at least five more minutes, wait for that horrible cry, console them and put them back down again. Then ten minutes, then twenty, then forty-five. We came up with all sorts of different scenarios about how they might respond and how we would react. Four nights ago, we put it into action.

At 1:45am, we heard them in the other room. We both woke up and sat still, waiting for that cry. It didn't come. One baby cried for three minutes, while the other cried for one and went back to sleep (and no, I still can't identify the boys from their cries!) And that was it. We thought, okay that was just too easy. We're going to really get it tomorrow night.

They cried for ten minutes that next night. And it wasn't even a horrible one.

The next night, we couldn't remember them waking up at all. Last night, nothing. Again.

Geez. Why didn't we do this sooner??

I'm realizing there are a lot of things in parenting just like that. They're tough for a short time, but the effects last a loooong time. Hebrews 12:11 says,

"No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it."

Discipline isn't meant to be fun. (But neither is walking around like a zombie because you aren't getting any sleep!) A few verses before this one says that the Lord disciplines those He loves. It isn't meant to be an enjoyable process for the person following through, but we do it because we know it will be positive for everyone involved. There are so many things in life where we need to exercise a period of discipline before we can experience success. Losing weight, finishing a paper for class. Training for a race or studying for the promotion at work. Our kids need discipline, but they also need to see us exercise it in a healthy way.

Here, we thought we would be training the boys. As it turns out, mom and dad were the ones who needed the discipline!