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   Monday, November 13, 2006  

Knxzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Things have gone from wonderful, to bad, to OHMYGODMAKEITSTOP around here. I am exhausted. Mr. W is exhausted. And our son is the fucking energizer bunny.

The lowercase came home from the NICU and slept in a cradle beside my bed part-time. The rest of the time he slept in my arms or cuddled against me in our bed. Then we transitioned to the pack'n'play in our room for a bit (with the same part-time co-sleeping arrangement). And then I finally got the guts up to put him in his crib in his own room. For a few days I slept in the guest bed in his room to be sure he was alright. Things were wonderful. He slept well. He loved his bed. And then...

Like a month ago my son had a cold. He couldn't sleep lying flat, he cried, he was sick, it was bad. And so I slept propped up in the guest bed in his room holding and cuddling him. And then he had that damned sebaceous nevus removed. And so I brought him back down the hall to my room where he slept between me and Mr. W. Then we had guests staying with us for his birthday, so he continued to sleep with us.

Suddenly he became the kid who sprawls out and sleeps sideways in a bed -- something that doesn't work in a queen size bed when one of the adults is built like a linebacker (I'll leave it to you to figure out whether the linebacker is Mr. W or me). So we tried putting him back in the pack'n'play with moderate success. He'd sleep for an indeterminate amount of time and then wake up and cry. I'd pick him up, he'd stop crying. I'd sit down on my bed, he'd crawl out of my arms to his spot in the middle of the bed and instantly sleep. So that became routine -- get him to sleep, put him in the pack'n'play, at first peep pick him up and pull him into our bed to sleep through the rest of the night.

And then last week hit.

Near the end of last week, he began waking up and crawling all over whatever bed he was in anywhere between 4am and 6am. He was in full-on play mode. If he awoke before 6 am, the two of us would head to the living room where he would get put in his exersaucer, the tv would be turned to something child-friendly (generally Noggin...it actually got so bad that I recorded shows that he seemed to like on the DVR so they could play in a loop during this "playtime" -- and this from a child who has *never* watched TV beyond the occasional play and clap and sing with mommy while a baby einstein video is on) and I would curl up on the couch with one hand on the tray of the exersaucer and doze while he played. He would play for an hour or two and then cry for me. I would pick him up, curl up on the couch with him in my arms and we would both sleep for a couple more hours. (Wakings at 6am or after were counted as the start of the day and he would eat breakfast -- his normal waketime is 7 - 7:30.)

And then Saturday night happened. We had been out and he fell asleep in the car. We got home and at just before 10 I tried to change his diaper and get his pajamas on. He screamed and screamed and cried and cried and arched his back and threw a HUGE fit. It took me 45 minutes (with the last 10 being assisted by the Mr.) to change a damn diaper and put pajamas on. And then we got his bedtime bottles ready -- one ounce of prune juice, 5 ounces of milk. I fed him, he went to sleep before finishing the second bottle. I started carrying him down the hall...wide awake and screaming. I fed him another bottle and again...asleep. I laid him down in his bed and the screaming...oh...the screaming! At 1 am he was finally asleep and in his bed. At some point, and I'm not sure when, but Mr. W thinks it was around 2:30, he cried to be pulled into bed with us. Which of course I did. And he slept until 9am!

I managed somehow to get him back on his regular schedule for Sunday with the usual 2 naps of appropriate (for him) length. I thought things were good.

9:30 last night he's ready for bed, bottles made. I feed him, asleep before finishing milk. It's now 9:45. I let him sleep in my arms until I'm sure he's in a deep enough sleep that my movements won't wake him. At 10:15, we begin walking toward the bedroom. Two steps from the door, his eyes pop open and he's wide awake. I get another bottle, and he drinks another 5 ounces of milk, still wide awake. We get a third bottle of milk, he takes one ounce and is asleep. Until his body touches his bed. At which point he's standing up screaming "Mamamamamamamamamamamamamama" as he looks over the rail at me, not 2 feet away from him. I pick him up, bring him into my bed, where he is crawling and going nuts. I give him to Mr. W who is still up working on a project. He holds him a while and continues working until the lowercase tries to escape him. He then crawls around the floor playing for a while. I get up and try to rock him to sleep. It works. I put him in his crib, his body touches the bed, awake and screaming. I pick him up, I rock him, I sing to him, I do everything I can to get the kid to sleep and finally he does. At this point, I'm exhausted. I've been trying to put the baby to bed for THREE hours, so I just put him in bed beside me -- no waking up this time. He slept until 8:30 this morning in my bed...mostly sideways between the Mr. and I. As a result, the child is Mr. Activity today and the two adults in the house are zombies.

Help.

   [ posted  @ 9:36 AM ] [ Post a Comment ] [ View Comments (5) ]
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  Comments about my post, "Knxzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz":
Oy, I'm sorry to hear this is the current state of bedtime affairs in the W house. We went through a similar-sounding bout of this about a month or so ago. It was horrendous and I was running on fumes.

I don't know what started the episode or exactly how we resolved it. I can tell you that we did things that probably aren't recommended by the experts--namely, when we could take it no more, we put her in her crib, shut the door, turned the monitor off in our room, and shut the door. It took three nights of this approach--three of the longest, most guilt-riddled nights (Mama, Maa-Maa, Maaa-Maaa sobbed on and on) of my life but she's back on track now. I'm not recommending you try this method, I'm just saying it is what we did. We were at the end of our rope when everything else we had tried failed.

I hope you all get some rest soon and that the lowercase gets back on sleeping track real soon. Exhaustion simply stinks.
Oh, dear God. You have my deepest sympathies. I hope you get some rest and/or caffeine soon, and that the lowercase gets back to better sleeping. Yikes.
I'm so sorry you're going through a rough patch. Some days you probably want toothpicks just to prop your eyes open.

I'm glad that lowercase is obviously recovering well, but damn they can seem to go forever, can't they? Thank God for Jack's Big Music Show.
I can relate to sickness and medical procedures throwing a beautiful sleep schedule off. It's a nightmare! I don't have a lot of advice. I have done the cry-it-out thing to get them back on track once I'm sure they've recovered from sickness or surgery or what have you. Like Dee, I have found it's the only way, but it's extremely hard. You have to do what's best for you, of course. I hope things straighten out soon. Being sleep deprived makes life seem so much harder.
If I recall, you are opposed to the cry it out method, so I don't really have anything to say that would help here. I do know that he is testing you...it doesn't sound like he is sick, just interested in doing what he wants to do. Cute? Absolutely, but not good for either of you. Not sure what the solution is - but maybe the pick up put down method? Either way - hope you find something that works.


 
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