Sleepless Nights and Screaming Babies

This post is inspired by a fellow blogger (my cousin's wife) and her little boy who decided to stop sleeping through the night after months of sleeping 10 hours at a time. It must be going around because my sister recently called me in hopes for some words of inspiration on how to get her 8 month old baby to sleep through the night. Unfortunately I had none. I too am searching for that ah ha moment when I finally find the answer to a much stewed over equation. Kennedy promised to be an angel baby and began sleeping through the night at as early as 2 months. I hate to say that it didn't last for long and around 5 months old she began the whole process of waking up again. I thought for sure it was just a phase and I would soon know how it feels to be refreshed and ready to start a new day again. Well Kennedy is going on 13 months and Iam still waiting for this phase to pass. I must say that we still have it pretty easy and typically are only required to get up once during the night and sometimes it would be at a more reasonable 5 a.m. However, I hope I speak for most mothers when I say whether it be once a night or 5 times a night I don't think it makes a difference... it is extremely frustrating!! So what do you do when you come to the realization that enough is enough? I feel like I have tried everything with very minimal results. I almost shouted victory last week while Nate was away for a few days and I tried the 'cry it out' method again for who knows how many times in Kennedy's short life time. After one night of enduring almost two hours of heartbreaking screams I couldn't believe it when four days passed with out getting up at all. As I was gaining confidence in my tough love approach, the fifth day brought getting up multiple times at night with an almost inconsolable baby. I am always quick to suspect the obvious...(teething) and apply orajel. And if her crying continues I eventually add the appropriate dosage of children's Tylenol to the equation. Yet I have been suspecting teething for far too long with no new pearly whites as confirmation of my theory. We do know she does have teeth trying to work their way down as her gums are swollen and more recently have become more and more asymmetrical with what I refer to as teeth bumps. But honestly, how long can it take for teeth to break through?? So after an evening of going up and down the stairs trying to comfort a child who can't seem to stay asleep for longer than 1 hour at a time without waking up, I find myself anticipating another sleepless (and frustrating) night.