4 February 2016

Sleep reality

I went to my chiropractor yesterday and the first thing she said to me was -'You look exhausted!' and I laughed outloud and said, 'well yes, you could say that. But......I'm happy!'

I have the best kids in the world.  They make me laugh every day.  I am a bit worried about returning to work on the little sleep I am getting right now.  Titus has picked up some really bad sleep habits and I am mentally bracing myself for the battle of wills that has to be won before it gets better.

Last night - fed Mr T a bowl of baby cereal, saw he was getting sleepy so PJ-ed him and gave him a good feed at 7pm.  He dropped off like a textbook baby. I even laid him in his own bed and he didn't wake. I was amazed. I went down and ate dinner with Simon like a normal person for once!

But then-

7:45 - Titus wide awake. He watched us put Felicity to bed
9pm - Titus still awake and starts fussing - 'you can't be hungry' I say, determined to break the 2 hour cycle.  He cries.
10pm- after crying for almost a solid hour, I give in and feed him. At least it's been 3 hours and not 2 hours between feeds?

And so it progressed -

1am - fussing for a feed
3am - fussing for a feed (and after I settle Titus I have to go through to change Felicity's sheets and settle her. While I'm up anyway, I go downstairs to start the next load of laundry, load the dishwasher and sweep the kitchen floor- ie., evening chores I hadn't been able to do while acting like a human pacifier...). I thought about blogging then too because it was so nice and quiet (I should do more chores in the middle of the night...) but I heard Titus start fussing again upstairs so.....
5am - feeding
7am - feeding.

And this has been the typical night for this boy for the last 2weeks. Honestly- how am I still standing?

I told the health visitor this morning about Felicity's sleep difficulties and how I am anxious about getting Titus to sleep.  I've never had a baby sleep through the night - ever.  I am a great mom during the day but at night it feels like we're in the trenches just doing anything to get by.  I have a lot of insecurity about it because I feel like I've read everything about sleep when we were trying to get Felicity to sleep. I don't need advice from people whose kids just sleep after a certain age.  And it really bugs  me when people complain about tiredness (or worse, blame any rude behaviour on 'oh I'm just so tired') after one night of bad sleep. Get over yourself - you're only complaining because you still *expect* to have good nights of sleep.  After 4 years of broken sleep, you stop having any such expectations that just lead to continued disappointment.  Any night when I get 3 hours of consecutive sleep is a good night for me.

I don't hold out much hope for solutions, but here is what I'm going to try to do -

1) keep a sleep diary for Titus
2) up his solids during the day
3) give him water in a cup
4) try to get him into the habit of falling asleep in his own bed - without feeding him every time

*sigh*

We're going to persevere for the next 6 weeks and stick to it.  I don't expect any sleep the next few nights as we adjust.  Simon has blown up the air-mattress for me in the kiddo's room in case I need to sleep in there for the next few days while Titus adjusts to sleep in the cot bed.  If we can just get him falling asleep in his own bed, I know that will go a long way to fixing my fears.

__________________________________________________________


After I wrote this, my sister sent me this:

http://sarahbessey.com/the-nightwatch/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EmergingMummy+%28Sarah+Bessey%29

And I started crying reading it, because it summarizes soooo well all the mixed feelings you have with repeatedly getting up over and over each night for your kids that you love sooooo much.


And tonight there was a baby prayer night for my friend R__________.  And it was beautiful.  I got goosebumps during some of the prayers and was crying all over myself (managed to hide most of my sniffles during a person who was conveniently coughing at regular intervals - next time there is one of these things I am taking a handkerchief!)  So I felt very encouraged tonight.

And what do you know?  When I got home, both kids were asleep!  Simon is amazing.  He had to settle Titus in our bed (so that Felicity could go to sleep) but he managed to just pat his son back to sleep.

So I have done some tidying and laundry (and even played a little piano and written a bit of this blog post!)

Now I am going to go up and dream-feed Titus and move him to his own bed - wish me luck.

(And I promise, I'll stop blogging about sleep one day.....)