Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Nightime troubles

This is the tale of a young baby's quest
to push his mother to the edge of sanity
between the hours of Midnight and 6 am.




I went to bed last night at 7:15 pm. Yeah, you read that right, seven freakin' fifteen. I haven't gone to bed that early since I was in the third grade. Why was I in bed at such an early hour? Because Mr. Innocent up there kept me up ALL NIGHT on Monday night. Literally, my eyes finally closed at 5 am and I slept for all of two hours. Two freakin' hours people! So last night I hit the hay early to get a leg up on some sleep. Thank God because my little sugar booger is on a quest to slowly drive me insane with sleep deprivation. In his defense...he is cutting 3 teeth as we speak. Needless to say, he's just not too happy these days.

I don't do well when I don't get enough rest. I cry like a baby and get tummy aches and yell at my older son for stupid stuff like, uh, breathing. I'm at my worst at 4 am. Let me tell you about my night.

7:15-I put on my Lavender eye pillow. stretch out into bed, and fall peacefully asleep.

11:00 pm-whew...I just got almost 4 hours of sleep in a row. Yay me! Grab baby, nurse baby, change baby's diaper, place him lovingly back in the crib. Sigh a huge sigh that he went back down easy. Go back to sleep.

1:00 am- Wake up to crying baby. Swoop him up, give him pacifier, walk around room going "ssshhhh" in his ear lovingly while I give him a little jiggle. He falls back asleep and goes in crib pretty easy. Yay me!

3:30 am-Why is my baby awake again? Nurse him, change diaper, curse the heavens because his eyes are wide open and he is singing "la la la goo ga." If he is going to be awake and happy he can do it in the crib. Place baby back in crib awake. Step away slowly and listen to his sweet song for half an hour.

4:00 am-Koen is screaming in his crib. So much for a happy baby. Swaddle, give Tylenol, give Mylecon (One of these medicines has got to cure whatever is ailing him right?), rock him to what looks like a peaceful slumber.

4:10 am-slowly put baby back in crib, his eyes pop open right away, he is crying.

4:30 am-As I rock in him the glider I start to cry too. This scares him and he cries louder, which makes me cry louder. We both sob and hold onto each other.

5:00 am- I begin to doubt my own parenting skills. I ask myself questions like...why can't I be one of those moms that can let the baby cry it out? Was it a mistake to start rocking him to sleep when he had that cold and needed some extra love? Have I ruined my baby? Is this my fate for the rest of his babyhood? These thoughts go in a loop as I try every possible method to sooth my now hysterical baby.

6:00 am- He is finally asleep in the crib and seems peaceful. I crawl back into bed and try my hardest to fall back asleep but I am fuming at the fact that I was just up three and a half hours with my baby. I drift off to sleep only to be awakened by the alarm at 7 am. Time for our lovely day to start.

By about 3 pm I look like this...


6 comments:

Lee said...

I am so sorry that you are at this point with your baby, but SO glad it isn't me!! By the way...he is a doll!!

Alicia said...

yeahhhhh i feel your pain sister! between the 3 of my heavenly children i don't know the last time i slept for more than 3 hours straight...and presley had HORRID colick and 'slept' on my chest EVERY SINGLE NIGHT for the first 6 months. and i mean every.single.night. that was inbetween the screaming and crying of course.....le sigh....

SPEAKING FROM THE CRIB said...

love the picture - but i don't even believe you iron your clothes, so don't try and front

here is my motto - no one ever died from crying but people have been killed due to sleep deprivation

if my 11 month old does not wake up for her -nightly- bottle before i go to sleep, tough tookies sweetie!

we both have noise machines in our rooms, and i turn my on, and get my 8 hours of sleep, and i don't go get her until I am awake.

BUT she's also not sick. so i get it. but once he's better, if he's over 6 months and drinking so many ounces for the day, you can sleep easy knowing it's okay for him to skip the night time feeding

btw - how did MY underwear get in your junk door? i don't even believe that they're not grannies!

pss - do you have a secret love affair with word verification? if not, you should GET RID OF IT! i just did after someone FINALLY informed me that i had it. please do it before my fingers fall off! i just had to type in DROLL. apparently that was wrong b/c now i have to type HAROB

Amber Page Writes said...

I swear to you I could have written that post...my five-month-old is teething - and she's trying to kill me. Literally. When I get tired, I tend to fall down a lot (stairs are my enemy).

Here's hoping you get some sleep tonight!

Lemonade Makin' Mama said...

Okay, girl been there, done that!!!

Your profile info made me laugh out loud by the way... I love that you hate laundry. I hate it too. I just can't get excited about any aspect of it...

Okay, well I'm really glad you stopped by my blog, and I will be coming back to yours soon! Get some sleep girlfriend!

Blessings,
LMM

SPEAKING FROM THE CRIB said...

OMG - THANK YOU! MY FINGERS ARE THANKING YOU!