A Sleepy Update

So...the whole sleep thing continues to be NOT GOOD. 

Some nights Tiny Boy can make it in his crib until 3:00 or 4:00 am but I'd say at least 4 days/week he's with me as early as 1:00 and sometimes as early as 11:30.  And no matter when his first waking, he manages to drink ~10 oz of rice milk/water (it's so diluted, it's ridiculous, but he can tell the difference if it's JUST water) through the night, before morning bottle (which I'm willing to give him ~6:00 am).  The bottles don't bother me, as I just keep a stash of them in a lunch box with an ice pack next to my bed.  It's the fact that he needs to be in MY bed.  (Long term plan is to give him a sippy cup/water bottle but I'm not sure we're there yet.  Maybe.)  And indeed when I've tried to give him a bottle and leave him in bed, he's rarely willing to go along with it; mostly he picks up his pillow and blanket and says "No.  Nite-nite mommy" or something to that effect.

And when he's with me, he's restless, either not sleeping or just being fitful (he cries out a lot in his sleep...nightmares or night terrors or something) and I suspect that I keep him awake as much as he keeps me awake.  Sometimes if he's been with me for an hour or so I can get him back IN the crib so I have some hope that someday he'll be able to just be there.  But for whatever reason he really needs me right now for at least part of the night.

I mean, big picture, in the whole history of me and Tiny Boy, this is exceptionally good.  (Let's recall that we've gone stretches when he's woken every 40 minutes or been awake for several hours in the middle of the night.  The fact that he IS in the crib for a good chunk of most nights and about half the time I can actually get 3-4 hrs uninterrupted sleep [and he does too].  But 3-7 am is just horrible, largely because he wakes frequently in that stretch and I often have trouble falling back to sleep.  [And yes I've tried giving him more and less milk at all times of night and it doesn't seem to make any difference])  I'm ready to be done with sleep problems (or simply revert back to my own old sleep problems and not have them tangled up with someone else's).

I Think We Call This "Sleeping Through the Night"!

Tiny Boy was in his own bed, without a peep, until 6:00 am.

Then he proceeded to chitchat with me about trains, had a bottle, and went back to sleep in my bed until roughly 7:30.

One night does not a trend make.  But 10 hours?!

Yay that.

The Morning Cry

As I said, there seems to be absolutely no rhyme or reason for why sometimes Tiny Boy sleeps and sometimes he doesn't.  Let's be clear:  mostly he doesn't, but it's still SO MUCH BETTER than it used to be that I really can't complain.  While I'm not happy about using various pharmaceutical sleep aids (Benadryl, mostly, with some Xanax thrown in there on occasion), I'm sleeping well enough that I can THINK during the day.  And do things like my job.

But consistently for the past week or so Tiny Boy has woken up around 5:00 and, instead of asking for a bottle, starts yelling about TOYS.  "My b[all]oon, my b[all]oon" (huh?) or this morning "DINO!" which was a birthday gift from LG and I promptly fetched from his crib because he wouldn't stop crying about it.  And he immediately cuddled with it and went back to sleep.

What gives, Tiny Boy?

The Sleep Woes

Tiny Boy is back in my bed.

To clarify:  Tiny Boy goes to bed, on his own, in his own bed around 8:00 pm.  Somewhere, generally 1:30 or 2:00, he wakes up, calls for me, picks up his pillow and blanket and says "too, too" (????) which is his word for going to my bed.  I have tried rocking him and re-dumping him the crib.  I have tried sitting in the rocker while he falls back to sleep.  If I do the former, he gets down and walks into my room.  The latter, well, he doesn't sleep but waits for me--and I've sat there A LONG FUCKING TIME--and then cries when I eventually ditch him.  So, in the end, faster to get back to sleep for both of us if I give in to "too, too."

I am not philosophically opposed to co-sleeping.  LG spent much of her first 2.5 years in my bed, and that was fine.  Tiny Boy was fine as a breastfeeding infant.

But as a bigger baby/toddler Tiny Boy SUCKS as a co-sleeper.  What he wants is to sleep on my body.  Specifically, my head.  I cannot even begin to tell you how fucked up my neck is right now, from having a toddler crawling over my pillow and mashing his head against mine (why this is comfortable for him, I don't know).  I pick him up and shove him back into the corner of the bed (which used to be where he slept); he comes back.  We repeat about 30 times.  I threaten to put him back in his crib.  He finally moves.  Ugh.

He needs to be evicted.  But every time I start the evicting process he gets sick.  I mean, you can't evict a baby with PNEUMONIA!  He's on the mend now.  So tonight, people.  Tonight.  Yeah.

Progress

It seems every time we make some progress in the sleep department there is a setback.  This time:  an illness (sinus infection?) that left him sobbing at night about his "teeth" and coughing.  He's 7 days into antibiotics and things are looking better.  But, short term, I ended up bringing him in bed with me--the alternative was sitting in the rocker for hours on end--so now that's become a bad habit that needs to be broken.  I will say, though, that it's not an all night thing as it was for a few days.  First waking is coming around 3:00 or even 4:00!  Sometimes I can get him to stay in the crib until 5:00 and sometimes it's just easier to snuggle up and go back to sleep.  So while it's not great, the advantage of co-sleeping is NO CRYING.  Even if he wakes up he actually uses his words:  "mo baba, pees" and "ah done" or "ni-nite, mommy."  So that's something.  Getting there.  Slowly.

He's up to 22 lbs in a diaper.

Otherwise:  also slowly getting work done.  Trying to respect my own boundaries, esp. when it comes to email.  Would like to be getting more reading done.  Would like our house to be a bit cleaner.  But all in all, I feel better not nursing (I'm gaining weight back at an astonishing rate) and sleeping closer to normally.  Still relying too much on the variety of drugs in my arsenal (don't do any one thing two days in a row because, frankly, I'm afraid of addiction) but the consequences of the MAJOR INSOMNIA are just too high otherwise....mostly I just use Benadryl which I need, anyway, because of the allergy situation.

One thing at a time, right?

Weaned

I think we're really truly done nursing.  It's been two weeks (?) or thereabouts, with only a couple requests which were easily redirected.

It's occurred to me that I'm not sad or wistful or anything, that I'm really glad to be done.  And that seemed weird to me, given how agonizing it was to stop nursing LG before I was even close to ready (even though she was sick and I was literally starving).

See, nursing a toddler wasn't particularly enjoyable. 

It involved being pawed at and bitten.  It involved nursing someone who was frequently upside down or rolling around (and generally behaving like a toddler).  It involved poor sleep.  It involved milk letting down at seemingly random times because sometimes we nursed a lot and sometimes we didn't.

Nursing an infant on the other hand--well, that I could have done longer.  So I'm a sad that I won't have that experience again, with Tiny Boy or, presumably, any other baby.  But man am I happy to be done nursing a 22-month-old.

Updates on All Things

• The marvel that is SLEEP.  I slept 9 hrs Friday night, about 9.5 Saturday night, and last night spent 10 hours IN BED, though Tiny Boy managed to wake me more times than I want to count, but probably 8 of that was spent actually sleeping.  If I didn't have a cold, I might actually feel good.
• My doctor's new plan (in lieu of Ambien and Restoril) is putting me on Xanax, with the understanding that I will not use it frequently.  I am not sure how I feel about this.  But I need a drug that is relatively fast acting and can be taken in the middle of the night without a great likelihood of a huge drug hangover the next day.  She said Xanax is the closest thing.  I don't like that I need something like this, but, really, the waking at 2:00 or 3:00 am and not going back to sleep is killing me, and it's happened A LOT in the last few weeks.   
• We have not nursed in, I think, just over a week.  He asked for it once.  I said, sorry no more milk in there, can I get you a bottle?  and that was just fine with him.  AMEN.
• Work is going okay.  I got caught up over the weekend at my mom's, at least with the class stuff.
• Still have not talked to Dr. Gorgeous, who has now called me twice, at really bad times.  I will be driving down the Highway of All Things Infertility and maybe I will stop in.  Then again, I don't know.  The more I think about these embryos the ickier I feel about it.  I think I'm ovulating.  I'm sure I shouldn't make decisions under the influence of estrogen.
• I think that's all.  Bed time.

Two Steps Forward...

Tiny Boy has some fantastic nights (Monday he woke for the first time around 3:30 and not again until the morning!) and some crappy nights (last night he woke 1:00ish and then was awake from 3:30 until maybe 5:00...he went back to sleep only after he'd had his full "morning" bottle).  On the whole the past 10 days or so--since he got sick--have been of the sucky sort, at least for me. 

Actually called my primary yesterday to see if she'd give me some non-Ambien sleep aid--still waiting to hear back.  Too many nights of me waking at 2:00 or 3:00 or 4:00 and not going back to sleep again, so even when Tiny Boy has a good night, I don't. 

Most days right now we're nursing only once, in the morning, and generally only on one side (I'm not even sure my left breast is producing anything anymore...it certainly hasn't become engorged)  Sometimes after daycare, but only if he asks and then refuses my counteroffer of bottle or food.  I'm really ready to be done completely, as his latch seems to be weird right now and it's not comfortable.  So, soon.

Still trying to get him to eat instead of drink.  He seems to do okay at daycare but wants very little to do with food at home (the exception being he eats a TON when we are grocery shopping and he's in the cart).  He seems to be more willing to eat at 7:30 pm, when I want to get him ready for bed, so I'm trying all kinds of semi-sneaky things, like fake nutella on a bagel, or pumpkin pancake with syrup, or coconut milk yogurt/babyfood combo, just to get a bit of fat/protein in him before bed.

I'm just tired.  Like so tired I can't think straight, let alone do my job.  I know not all days are like this, but I really need a break.

Up and Down

We are getting somewhere with the weaning.  Pretty much down to twice per day (either after daycare or before bed and then first thing in the morning); as he can also have bottles at these times, I do not see it being incredibly difficult to stop those nursing sessions.  I am somewhat ambivalent.  I would like my breasts back.  I would like to never look at a nursing bra again (mostly I'm not, although I should probably buy some bra that actually fits).  But Tiny Boy is one of those kids who generally doesn't snuggle if he's not being nursed, and I don't want to give up the snuggles.

I am having some mood swings and I really wonder how much it might be hormonal, given that I basically went from 2.5 years of fertility drugs to another 2.5 years of pregnancy + nursing + really crappy sleep.  (Yes, holy fuck, this journey started 5 years ago.)  I have an appointment with my therapist in a couple weeks, and I think we might talk about that.  Mostly I'm fine, but I can get scattered and overwhelmed very easily and then I'm in a funk.

And oh my goodness, I know in the big picture my life is GOOD.  Let's take stock:  fertility treatment done (check), the number of kids I always wanted (check), tenure (check), a job I mostly like (check), a house in a good community (check), good friends (check), family support (if we're not counting my sister, check).

So it's hormones, right?  It's wild swings of prolactin and progesterone and all that stuff, right? 

*

Things are mostly better with the sleeping (although there was a lot of crying and holding around 1:00 in the morning for some unclear reason, and he really wasn't going for a quick bottle and re-tuck routine, but at least we're mostly sleeping until 7:00 or later (!!!!!!) so yeah, sleep is good as long as I accept that I will be waking up until we get a house so large I can have a bedroom in a completely separate wing from my kids (ha!)).

And now I need to go to LG's drama camp performance.  And remember to bring a camera, as I am one of those bad mothers who mostly forgets a camera because I'd rather WATCH the performance than have it on video.  But I digress...

Just In Case It Never Happens Again

I need to say that Tiny Boy woke only twice last night (1:00ish and 5:00ish) and consumed only 2 diluted bottles (so that's about 1 oz rice milk plus 1 oz water) before nursing at 6:25.  He might even have gone back to sleep if I'd held him longer, but the Bunny Clock says it's okay to wake at 6:30, and we did.

I doubt very much he will sleep through the night without a peep.  (Are there actually children who do so?)  But we are getting somewhere.

Until, of course, the next tooth, cold, etc etc etc.

Progress!

So last night, the first night of the diluted bottles, I only picked up Tiny Boy the first waking, when he was holding up his arms.  Otherwise I gave him the bottle* and went back to bed.  I think tonight I'll give him a 4 ounce bottle on first waking and then the watered ones and see if that keeps him sleeping more soundly.  All a grand experiment.  But he does seem to be accepting the no "mama mil" in the middle of the night, anyway... it's been more than a week.





* Yes, I know you are not supposed to let babies sleep with bottles.  Bad for their teeth and all that.  But he doesn't actually sleep with the bottle IN his mouth, to the best of my knowledge, and, well, if I have to choose, sleep is more important than teeth.  Besides, it's temporary, he's going to be sucking on water very soon I say...