One Day I'll Sleep

Well, the baby has settled on a daytime schedule. It goes roughly like this: Anytime Josephine is sleeping, I am awake. Suck on it, mom. For the millionth (?) day in a row, as I was closing Josie's door and imploring her to "rest her eyes, rest her head," wailing from the room next door started up. AS I WAS CLOSING THE FRICKIN' DOOR. How does she DO that? 

It is nice to have one-on-one time with each of the girls every day, don't get me wrong, but it also means I get NO BREAK EVER EVER, on top of no sleep at night, AND it makes it wicked hard to get out of the house to do anything, and OH MY GOD, it's too much at once!

That's basically what has been consuming my time over here: Sleep issues of every way, shape, and form.

Basically, the baby is still struggling with establishing a solid daytime schedule that leaves her happy and rested AND has decided nighttime requires constant comfort from mama, and to top it all off, Josie is putting up a fight at nap and bed times now, something she doesn't do all that often. 

The short story is I am obsessed with sleep but get none. The long story is what you will get, however, because hello, have you MET ME?

Let's start with Genevieve. She is doing okay during the day. She doesn't have a real schedule yet (but Josie didn't either at this age), but she is sleeping and being happy, so that is good. She was rocking the two hours up, two hours down thing, even though it never started at the same time every day, and I could handle that. Now she is up for two hours, goes down easily, takes a great nap, is up two hours, goes down for a nap-- oh, just kidding, that ten-minute nap is all I'll do, mom! Then the rest of the day is like that -- no real naps until bed, and by then she is cranky and overtired and can't sleep. Shocker!

We also just recently decided to buy the video monitor we desperately needed (Josie's crapped out) and move her downstairs to her nursery in her crib (SOB!) at night instead of sleeping upstairs in mom and dad's room. The first night she was a champ: up twice to eat and right back to sleep in the crib. A miracle! Amazing. Also, too good to be true. She's back upstairs now, and the worst part is, she is back to her desire for constant comfort at night. One-night break. Awesome. 

This all started in October when we had the combined total of maybe 20 healthy days between October and Christmas. Every time she got sick, she needed to be held and/or nursing to be able to sleep. ALL NIGHT. So I didn't sleep or slept for short bursts in very uncomfortable positions while nursing. Then she would get better and get sick a few days later, and, needless to say, she got used to her new nighttime situation and got hooked. Then came Christmas with no schedules and super-exciting moments which made it impossible for her to nurse or sleep well. Look! A thing! Listen! A sound! I must see and hear it ALLLLL! So, she got good and overtired and used to no-schedule life, and bedtime became even worse. I thought if I got her out of our bedroom and she couldn't see, smell, or hear me at night, she might actually get some rest. And the biggest burn is, I was right, but only for one night. I don't get it. Unless she's getting sick again. Oh, help me Jeebus.

I was talking to someone about this recently, and they said something to the effect of "Oh, it's too bad that breastfed babies need to get up a few times during the night when bottlefed babies at this age can sleep through the night." No, I'm not crying about getting up a few times to nurse. That would be a god damn pleasure cruise compared to what we are doing. I wake up feeling like I was hit by a Mack truck. That is no way to start the day when you are going to be caring for two kids all day with NO BREAK EVER. 

I guess the thing is, I had ideas about the second time around. I was determined to not make the same mistakes I did with Josie, or at least not let things get as far as they did so it didn't take as much effort to teach my kid about the beauty of sleeping long stretches. It was pretty hellish with Josie. 

If you weren't around then, I can sum it up by saying that I was guilty as hell about the first few months of her life being marred by constant pain, and that, combined with me leaning more towards Attachment Style parenting as a new parent (though I had never heard the term at that point) made me inclined to do whatever made her happy. Oh, you want me to hold you ALL DAY and ALL NIGHT? Okay! I love you, angel baby! Whatever makes you trust me again after I couldn't respond to any of your urgent needs when you were a newborn! Seriously. The guilt was overwhelming. Then, when we decided she was much too old to be sleeping in our room and getting up four times at night to nurse (I'll spare her by leaving out the age, but ... it was ... OLD), we realized that she was a tension increaser, and even if we wanted to try that plucky old "cry it out" method, we were shit out of luck because girlfriend could cry all night long and not give in. (Seriously, if you've never experienced a tension increaser, just thank your lucky stars and move along.) 

Luckily, Josie finally got it, and once she started sleeping through the night, we slowly crept her bedtime forward until she was sleeping 12 hours straight through, which made her naptime much easier too, since she wasn't overtired. It was a miracle. But it took a LONG time. I do not want to go down that long and winding road again. However, I'm not ready to just toss Genevieve in her crib and leave her there to cry. I'm just not. Honestly, I never will be. It's not the answer anyway, because there is no way I could sleep with her doing that, so it won't give me a break of any kind if I am up, listening to her and wringing my hands. 

The current sleep problems with Josie are a whole different ball game, obviously, as we are dealing with a two-year-old who has ideas and preferences and must do everything HERSELF and HER WAY, and I'm guessing that's 99% of the problem, and frankly, I'm much too tired to get into all of that, too. 

Plus, I'm teaching a history class this quarter and GROSSLY underestimated the amount of time I would need for reading, outlining, and making PowerPoints with awesome pictures to supplement the reading. You know what doesn't help? Only being able to work on all those things for five minutes at a bleeding time.

I know, two bummer posts in a row. Why do you even come here anymore?!?

Here, I hope this helps offset the complainy nature of this post: Cute girls! Being cute!