one plus one plus one

Back to basics

Tonight I relived Jamie's baby days as I sat on the couch in the dark, long past his bedtime, and nursed him into a deep, deep slumber by the light of the almost mute tv. It was either that or spend another night frustrated and pissed off and guilty for being pissed at my poor, sweet, hurting baby. I've been frustrated enough that MD has expressed some concern the following day, and rightly so.

Whenever I lose sight of my original parenting philosophy - do what works now, and sort it out later - it comes back and bites me in the ass. And, when I lose faith in my own methods, it never ends well. When Jamie's tantruming, MD's method is to gently talk him through it. He just talks. And talks, and talks, about everything and nothing, until Jamie finally settles down. It's really awesome and from time to time I feel guilty for my own response, which is to silently sit until the storm passes. The problem is, if I start talking, I get frustrated when Jamie doesn't respond the way I want him to, which is calm the hell down. No matter that he's freaking two. The gentle talking gives way to pleading, which gives way to impatience, which finally yields to anger. So the past couple of nights I've sat silently, offering comfort from time to time, until he's ready to accept it. I've nursed when neccessary, putting aside my impatience with nursing for the time being, and finally, tonight when it was obvious that he wasn't going to fall deeply asleep until the next dose of tylenol 3 kicked in and I couldn't stop thinking about last night's episode of the Amazing Race that was paused on the dvr, I took him downstairs and walked him around in the darkened family room where the light and sound of the fish tank (Dur? Dite dere!) finally calmed him to the point that it only took about 10 minutes of nursing for him to finally fall into a fitful sleep in my arms. An episode of the Amazing Race and the last half of What Not to Wear later, I was able to put him back into his own bed, at least as long as it's taken me to finish my dinner and get ready for bed so that if he does wake again soon, I can just climb into bed with him for the night.

I have two sides to my personality that are battling with each other during situations like these. The part of me that craves order and routine versus the part that hates rules and flies by the seat of her pants. Flipping back and forth while trying to maintain a consistent set of boundaries and "rules" (our rules are so general it's ridiculous - mostly about not hurting anyone or anything living and manners) wears on me. But really, how many more times will I have to snuggle him by the glow of the tv? How many more opportunities will I have to study his face as he sleeps, still angelic, with the tiniest bit of babyhood still present? Living in the moment is just as important as working toward the future person he'll be and the two don't have to be at odds with one another.

New topic, please?

Ok, I've been putting off the final, last, I-really-mean-it-this-time, post about nightweaning. Because I'm really tired of talking about sleep. But, in case our struggles might help someone else, I guess I'd better end the story. Jamie - nightweaned? Check. Jamie - sleeps through the night? Eh, usually.

For us in the end it all hinged on Jamie understanding that no nursing at night does not equal no nursing, ever. Once that happened, he started sleeping through the night at least half the time, and the other nights, he goes back to sleep without nursing, sometimes without protest, sometimes with, but usually within 5 minutes.

I've spent a few nights in his room, both before "the light bulb," and once since. I realized a few nights into this process that the last couple of times we've done this I've started while cosleeping. It eases his anxiety about not nursing to have me right there, and for a wonderfully charmed stretch of a couple of months (10-12 months) he slept almost all night in bed with me without waking. Until this last time, I had not cut the 5 am(ish) nursing session, for a couple of reasons that boil down to simple exhaustion - his and mine. Getting him to sleep 95% of the night took so much effort on my part that one waking close to morning was just fine for a long time. And he was so overwhelmed by the process at that point, it just wasn't worth it to me to keep at it. This time was different. This time was for keeps, and I knew that we had to cut that last feeding - no nursing until morning. That's what was causing the anxiety.

Here's my public service announcement. When they say that babies are developmentally ready to sleep through the night at such-and-such an age, they're talking about physical readiness, not emotional. For us, until Jamie was able to understand the concept of "morning," and "we nurse when we wake up," nightweaning was never going to stick. Looking back now, it makes perfect sense.

Regrets? Just one. Not side-carring the crib and cosleeping from the first. For Jamie, that would have been the ideal situation and the one that would have consistently afforded me the most sleep. And he may have been able to understand "no nurse until morning" easier and earlier if he had the security of sleeping next to me all those months. Then again, maybe nightweaning would have been harder in the end. I'll never know and I did the only thing any parent could do. I did the best I could with the knowledge I had.  What I don't regret is doing all this at his pace. That I don't regret at all.

If anyone wants more details about our nightweaning saga, click on the "Nighty-night (sleep tight)" category or email me.

Nightweaning, part 57(ish)

I'm lucky to live in an area with mulitple LLL groups, and there's a toddler/tandem group that meets a few minutes from my house. I decided recently it was time to stop volunteering with my other area group because their focus is on newborns/babies (rightly so) and that I was at the place where I needed some support for toddler bfing. So we went last Thursday and other than us having to rush out early - again, next time, MD is watching Jamie but couldn't last week - it went very well. Both leaders were very encouraging about nightweaning, pushing me, ever so gently, to set the boundaries that I so desperately need. So we started that night, again. And they reminded me to tell him what is going on. And yet, I forgot, until he had been screaming for about a half hour, at 4 am (Moxie is shaking her head at me right now, I just know it). Finally, I remembered to say, "Jamie, we don't nurse at night anymore. We can nurse in the morning, when the sun comes up." Oh, did that ever break his heart. But after a few minutes of even more vigorous screaming, he passed out. It's going better and better, with wakings taking about 5-10 minutes at this point, but he has yet to drop one, and is waking 3x a night, at completely unpredictable times...sigh. But, I am much less tired. So, yay. And this morning, I happily nursed him and it was a lovely start to the day, and I didn't resent a minute of it. Yay, yay.

(Current renewed nightwaking due to the accursed HFM.)

Please let this be the last

Sleep. What would you say if I told you I've had 4-5 hours of sleep, in a row, plus another 2-3, in a row, after that, for the past three nights? I wouldn't be surprised if you shook your head sadly, and declared that the sleep deprivation had finally gotten the best of me and I am hallucinating, but I swear, it's true!

At his 18 month checkup the ped checked his teeth and the molars were declared "in," so baby bootcamp began, again, that night. But let me back up a bit. The transition to the big boy bed went swimmingly. We had to fool around with the routine a bit, and settled on books - two, down from four - in the glider, than in the bed to nurse. Until a couple of weeks ago I could nurse him until drowsy, then either rock him or put him in the bed/crib. But he's been a little, um, obsessive about nursing these days, and I've had some trouble getting him to stop nursing and to go to sleep. Other than that, the wakings decreased dramatically, like down from every 1-2 hours, to 2-3 times a night. At the first waking, some time between midnight and 2, I was taking him to bed but not nursing. Then at the next waking, about 2-3 hours later, I'd nurse him. Then there would be the restless period from around 4 - 6 am, where he might nurse every half hour, or wake up and have to be resettled. That's what was killing me.

So Monday, we nursed for 10 minutes at bedtime and then I unlatched him and told him "night night, lay down and go to sleep." He was PISSED! I laid down next to him and pretended to sleep. He climbed on me, pulled my hair, tried to jump on me, the works. But he did got to sleep. Later that night I left him in his own bed for the first waking (1ish). He was pissed, and didn't want to go back to sleep, but he did and without nursing. At the second waking (3ish) I brought him to bed but wouldn't nurse. Pissed, but went to sleep. Woke at 4, nursed. Woke at 5, nursed. Then up for the day as usual around 7.

Tuesday, at the first waking...I nursed him, because it was after 5 am! Weds, it was 4, and last night, it was 4:30. We're still dealing with that weird early morning thing though. Yesterday and today he woke at 6:15. Yesterday he didn't go back to sleep, so this morning I nursed him in the rocker and got him back down at 6:30 and he slept until 7:45 when I had to wake him so we could get ready to go.

I feel, well, I still feel tired, but it's the every day kind of busy tired. Not the desperate, raving, maniacal tired only a chronically sleep-deprived parent could know. And it feels great.

Maybe I'm jumping the gun. We still have the canines to come in this year yet, and our ped thinks they'll bother him as much as the others, but the incredibly quick return to sleeping most of the night, in his own bed, has made me optimistic. So keep your fingers crossed for us, will you? I'd really like this to be the last time I post about sleep.

Oh normal, how I love you so

We had a lovely, normal, boring evening last night. Dinner was on the table less than ten minutes after we got home, courtesy of MD/the crockpot/Trader Joe's. Jamie actually ATE it, whoot, and we were done by 6:30. We played for an hour, Jamie went down easily and by 8:30 he was snoring away, the diapers were in the dryer, I was folding laundry and catching up on some tv. Boring is good, we like boring these days.

I didn't check in with my grandma or my mom at all yesterday, although to be fair, my mom could have called me too. I've talked to my grandma this morning and left a message for my mom, and I've got to carve out some time in my day to get there this afternoon, but otherwise we're in something of a holding pattern. I want to get over to her house this weekend to move some furniture around, since she's decided she wants a hospital bed when she gets home (my suggestion, thanks very much, I'm tired of her living on her 15-year-old couch), and we need to have some more discussions about the "situation," but I think my mom may actually be hearing me. Maybe.

*****

A bit about the husband. First, I'm really thrilled about something. (Good news before bad, eh?) He's really frustrated about the situation with my grandma and my mom, and he went out last night and had a beer to blow off some steam. AND, he told me about it. Not before he went, but he called me on the way home. Now, I think he may have only told me because he saw our old roommate and her husband and new he was going to get caught anyway, but there was a time when he would have vehemently denied it, even with two witnesses saying otherwise (it's a part of his personality disorder). So I'm really happy about that. When I told him it was fine and I didn't care, he tried to pull the, "But I feel SOOO GUILTY," act, I dunno why, if it was to try and get a rise out of me (an old pattern) or what, but I refused to bite and told him if he felt guilty that was all him, and I wasn't putting it on him. Then he got really serious for a minute and told me how bad he feels for all the crap he did to me in the old days. That was nice. I'll never forget, and I think the scars will always be there, just under the surface, but our situation was of both our makings, and it's nice to know he has some idea of how much he hurt me. Of course he was referring to it as "five years ago," (he has a really bad time thing, everything is either "the other day," or "a long time ago"), and I had to gently remind him that it was much more recent than that, but I do appreciate the sentiment.

However, there's something that's driving me crazy, and I think I'm just going to have to accept that he's going to spend most of his nights on the couch. Either because his allergies are acting up or he's sick, both meaning he can't wear his c-pap machine, or because of some injury. Save for a couple of weeks in February, he's been on the couch since December. Those few weeks are part of the reason why I've been pushing so hard to get Jamie in his own bed full-time, because the three of us plus Maggie - who will not sleep on the floor, we've tried - don't fit so well, even in our king-sized bed. I end up smooshed in the middle and wake with an aching back every morning.

But Jamie's been waking again this week - teeth? ears? habit? - and I'll be damned if I loose sleep over it. Night before last I brought him to bed when he woke at midnight - ugh, backsliding, there - and he slept until 6. Last night he woke around 12:45, and I got  him to sleep in his own bed, only to have him wake again at 3:45, brought him to bed, he woke AGAIN at 6.

MD's been coughing a lot the last few nights because of his allergies, and he refuses to try my other friend Z because he doesn't like nasal sprays. No, he'd rather cough and choke all night and be exiled to the couch until July, which is when his allergies die down. Right. So I'm done accommodating him, and I'll deal with the kid later. Part-time co-sleeping it is.

So there.

Potpourri

What Jamie thinks he had for dinner last night:

• italian sausage
• pasta with a yummy cheese sauce

What he had for dinner last night:

• turkey italian sausage
• barilla plus pasta in a sauce made of pureed cauliflower and red peppers, yogurt, butter and parmesan cheese

AND! I snuck some applesauce into his yogurt this morning. Score: Jamie 1, Mom 2. HA!

*****

We had some nightwakings last week as Jamie adjusted to the new bed. Friday he slept all night, and as I had crashed at 8 pm along with him, I woke feeling like a new, improved me Saturday morning. Saturday night was pretty good too. Sunday MD was certain he was teething again, but I thought surely, the universe wasn't that cruel. Haha. Of course it is. His canines are coming in, and by last night he had wormed his way back into our bed and was firmly attached to me all night long, my own personal barnacle baby.

*****

Of course, I didn't get to bed last night until well after midnight, since I was at the hospital with my grandma. Because when my idiot mother went over to her house last night, she wasn't there. My mom had to call the hospital to find out where she was. As of this morning it still wasn't clear who had called the squad, her doctor or her home health nurse, but all I know is, at 9:30 last night when my mom called me, she was in the ER and my mom was going home and going to bed, "because there wasn't anything she could do tonight."

Uh, how about keeping your fucking 84-year-old mother company? How about not leaving her to fend for herself when she's so sick and week she can barely lift herself up onto her bedside potty chair? How about that you stupid cow?

So I went to the hospital and was there until midnight. This morning, after I took Jamie to daycare - Jim is sick, was up throwing up all night - I went back for a couple of hours. My mom finally showed up around 10 and I came in to work afterwards.

Ok, my mom has her own health issues and in some ways is worse of than my grandma, but even so, I still see red when I think about her going home and going to bed.

Looks like we made the right call

Moxie takes on our latest sleep issue. I'm copying my comments below. What can I say? I'm feeling lazy and this is a perfect, insta-blog entry.

*****

Well, it took us all weekend to shop for and buy the mattress and a dresser to replace the changing table (and to put the dresser together, but that's another story) so last night was the first night in the new bed. And of course, either the damn molars or another ear infection had him waking, screaming, almost hourly. But I did get to test my theory that I could just sleep next to him on a bad night! And he went down just fine, which, I have to tell you, your advice about betime not being stressful is right on. It's always been my philosphy as well, and that's why we've coslept off and on, because I just don't have the patience or the energy to mess around. If it's bedtime, I want the kid asleep and in bed so I can move on with the evening. I've been feeling an enormous sense of relief about not having to deal with the crib at bedtime, and I've actually been putting him down in our bed from the start since the crib-climbing incident and he's been sleeping straight through until 5 or so.

"Our daughter has never been the type who wants to get up and play at night."

That's Jamie exactly, which is why I've dealt with his nightwakings the way I have. Even our pediatrician, who raisesd an eyebrow when at his 15 month checkup found out he was waking again at night, dismissed it when I told her they were brief, less than a minute or so, wakings.

Even if we continue to cosleep off and on, I think, Moxie, you're exactly right about the power struggle. This takes the power issue out of the equation, which means I'm not second-guessing myself anymore and can respond to the situation at hand, rather than wondering how my respons is going to impact things down the road.

Diet, schmiet

Send more sugar!

Man, last night sucked! Poor Jamie, with the teeth. Hourly wakeups between 11 p- 3 a and I am now dying at work. So I gave in, I ate sugar. And flour. And fat. Mmmmm...chocolate chip scones. But it's amazing how gross and sluggish I feel now. Which defeats the purpose of course.

It's about time for a latte, I think. With an extra shot. Or two. Do you know that's the most awesome thing about not pumping anymore? I have a window wherein I can drink as much caffeine as I want! WHOO!

*****

I just added a sleep category and am going back through the archives and updating categories (not fun, you'd think something could be done about that, Typepad), and I just wanted to say, this post is as true today as it was last June. Just sayin'.

Weekend wrap-up - chaos reigns and a case of the crabs

Funny thing, in the comments of my previous posts, Whylime  asked me if I was sure Jamie wasn't teething, because a lot of what I was describing sounded like, well, a teething baby. Turns out, I'm a big fat dumb-ass, and yes, he's teething. Those damn molars. I swear this kid has peek-a-boo teeth. One will just start to break through and then Poof! It's gone.

I've been giving him motrin at bedtime, "just in case," but not following up with a second dose when he wakes, hence the 4-6 am crab-fest. I finally figured this out Friday night, because I didn't give him anything at bedtime and he woke at midnight and would not resettle. Not in his crib, not in bed with me where we finally ended up because I was just convinced that all he needed was a little TLC and snuggle time with mom. So after two hours of him falling asleep only to wake up 5 minutes later crying hysterically, it finally dawned on me that the teeth! They are hurting! So I dosed him post haste, and we slept the rest of the night. Now that I've gotten my head out of my ass, things are going very well. Up at 3, motrin, nurse, rock, pat, back in bed within 15-20 minutes. Sigh. Relief.

**********

Now, for something besides sleep. Oh man, were we a bunch of crabby McCrabersons this weekend. Imagine - MD is on prednisone for his leg, which, if you've never taken the vile stuff count yourself as lucky because it comes with a host of nasty side-effects, including a big ole case of the crabs (no, not that kind you gutter-heads, geesh.) Me, I'm PMS-ing, and of course Jamie's teeth are making him miserable. We either needed a referee or separate living quarters for the weekend.

Mini-crabman had his first full-blown tantrum on Saturday, brought on I'm sure by lack of sleep the night before plus waking up from his nap a full hour early because we're stupid. Well, to give us some credit, he rarely needs treatment for teething during the day, but really. You'd have thought we would think to give the poor kid some motrin that morning, just to be safe. So, it was kind of funny and a little heartbreaking. He flipped out for a good 20 minutes, screaming and crying. He wouldn't let anyone touch him. He rolled around on the floor, banged his head on the stairs (I sat on them after a couple of bangs), and finally collapsed into a little sobbing heap, wedged in between the wall, the bottom step, and my leg. Wow.

Let's see, what else. Other than breakfast, he wouldn't eat ANYTHING but macaroni and cheese and cookies. Not even fried rice, which he usually loves. Not yogurt. Not applesauce. Not even, gasp and boy are we screwed, frozen blueberries. Hopefully it's just a side effect of the teeth, but if not, it's time to puree and hide the veggies.

The weather was so frustrating. We had a little warm spell, but it was so wet and rainy we couldn't really enjoy it. Jamie and I did take a little walk though. We went to the grocery store saturday afternoon and he did pretty well, but we were a little afraid of what was going to happen when we put him in the car seat and drove to the opposite end of the shopping center to Target, and then transferred him to another cart. He's been doing so well with holding hands lately that I decided we'd walk down and it was fun. He was so thrilled to be out of the cart and trotted along side me like a big kid. It was another "duh" moment. He's growing so fast, it's hard to keep up with what he can do these days.

With the warm weather this weekend, we opened all the windows and curtains and blinds, and I have to tell you, I'm not thrilled with what all that light and air revealed. With the dogs tracking mud in all over the place, and with half the rooms in our house partway through reorganization, dirt and chaos are currently reigning. I've accepted that with a small child in the house means a certain amount of disorder, but all this sleep we're getting now means more of our energy can be put towards putting the house back in order. I grew up in an almost sterile environment, and I certainly don't want that, but I also don't want to wake up to a sink and counters piled with dirty dishes because we just couldn't keep up over the weekend. There's a happy medium and I know we can get there, one day at a time.

She's STILL yammering about sleep?

Yep, there's no escape! Hey, it's either sleep or my boss, who appears to be distressingly close to a nervous breakdown, and we all know the first rule of blogging is you don't blog about work.

A summary of my method:
The way I'm working this is moving nursing farther and farther away from the end result - sleep. So, our usual routine - pjs, teeth, books, nurse. Then I pop him off before he's asleep and lay him in his crib. Usually I have to give in and pick him up and rock him a bit more because it seems like the minute his head hits the pillow (yep, we put a pillow in his crib, the horror) he wakes up. And rolls around. And kicks the sides of the crib. And chews on his stuffed dog/frog/whatever the hell I've picked for the night hoping he'll form some sort of attachment to one of them, please for the love of god. Ahem. Anyway, he falls asleep in his crib, one way or another. The bad news is this is stretching bedtime out until 9 pm or later most nights. The good news is, he's sleeping later and later before the first big wakeup.

A quick recap of the week:

• Sunday
• Monday - coslept from the start. He was still acting a little hinky about his crib, and I figured we needed to re-establish some trust.
• Tuesday - down in his crib at bedtime. Alseep around 9, woke briefly at 9:30 but went back to sleep with some shushing and patting. Slept until 2:30, I rocked him back to sleep, he slept until 4:30, nursed, but he was awake until almost 6.
• Weds - same as above, only slept until 3:30, went back in his crib without nursing but was restless until 6 again.
• Thurs (last ngiht) - went down at 9:30, only after MD took over at 9. He'll lay down for MD but fights me and I know it's because he knows it bugs me. So we have a little power struggle brewing over this and I'm not sure how to handle it. He will not let me leave the room or even sit down. If I leave the room, he gets hysterical. If I sit down he stands up and does goofy things to get my attention. Or tries to climb out of the crib. Anyway, slept until 4:30, I rocked him back to sleep. I rocked him all the way to a deep sleep because I figured he only had a couple hours left and maybe it would be ok. Forty-five minutes later he was up again and really upset. In my stupor, (I had just entered a deep sleep) I was determined not to pick him up and MD came in partway through this and as soon as I left the room Jamie went absolutely apeshit and I had to come back and nurse him. He went back down, and we had to wake him at 7:30

My concerns and what happens next:
Even though he's sleeping for longer and longer stretches, with the delay at bedtime and the work trying to get him back down some nights, he's actually losing sleep. This is affecting his daytime sleep and he's barely been napping, and doing so later and later in the day. Which of course is disrupting bedtime and making a challenging task (getting him to fall asleep in his crib) even more difficult.

I'm suffering. Greatly. I thought it would be ok if I got a nice chunk to start with, but it's harder for me to exit deep sleep and attend to him than it is to be lightly asleep all night with him next to me and nursing.

I think this is causing me to miss his first noises at the 4 am mark, which is causing him to wake fully, which is why this is such a challenging time period for us. After getting up for the day, I realized he had made some noise about 10 mintues before he was really up at 4:30 but I discounted it because he didn't cry. I think I need to crank the volume up to high and put it right by my ear, because I think if I get to him quickly like I do earlier in the night I might be able to get him settled before he stands up and is fully awake. This should in turn take care of the 4-6 am problem, keep him from sleeping too late, and get him back on track for the rest of the day.

The good news it's Friday so we have the weekend to work with him. The even better news is knowing dh can once again put him to bed. Dh will be on both nap and bed duty this weekend, so I'll just have nighttime duty. And I'm just going to have to train myself to pop awake at the slightest noise, like I did when he was an infant.

If anyone has any comments, ideas, or feedback, please please please share.