Crying in the Night

Last night while I was doing the dishes, I heard Willow crying (pretty loudly) on the baby monitor. As she sleeps upstairs in our two-story house, I turned off the water, dried my hands off, grabbed the baby monitor and headed up to check on her.

By the time I was half way up the stairs she stopped crying. Intrigued, I went to check on her and she was sleeping soundly.

This happens about once a month. I don't know if she has a bad dream or is startled by something, or what. But, every time we go to check on her, she is sleeping soundly.

Now, I had two options.

Option #1: Run upstairs as fast as I can and WAKE HER UP.
Option #2: Take it slowly and see if the problem resolves itself. (e.g. she stops crying and goes back to sleep on her own)

Several months ago, when I was a newer mom, I would drop everything and run to her side at the slightest hint of a whimper. What I really ended up doing was barging into her room and waking her up from her sleep. See, infants have a sleep cycle of about 90 minutes. Every 90 minutes they may wake up momentarily, and if left alone will go back to sleep in a minute or two. Once she was awake, I would often have a hard time getting her back to sleep.

Lesson learned? Option #2 works every time. And guess what? She is happy as a clam to see me in the morning because she had a good night's sleep.