The sleep situation in this household is getting worse, my friends. I forgot how absolutely terrible it feels to not get decent sleep at night - I'm turning into a grouchy zombie who doesn't want to move or think & I'm pretty sure it's making me crave junk food. I'm accomplishing nothing & am snapping at my favorite people on earth. I hate this.
Little Evan has some swollen bumps on his bottom gum so there have to be some teeth under there & they are going to have to push through one of these bloody days, I assume. He is in full-on comfort suckling mode so I hope those teeth come to the party sooner than later. We are attempting to move him out of our room because he's outgrown the bassinet in our room so we start him in his "new" crib, which is obviously Ben's old crib.
No, no, no, let's back up another step. He actually starts in our bed with me because the only way he'll go to sleep & stay there is for me to feed him to sleep while lying down with him. Yes, that's right, naps & everything. I can rock him in the chair & feed him to sleep too but the second I stand up, he snaps awake immediately. So after I get him to sleep in bed, I have to extricate myself with surgical precision & absolute silence - he still manages to wake up a few times before I get him to that sweet spot where he stays down. You can imagine how not-doable this situation is when there's an almost 3 year old in the house who can not get his head around staying quiet so the baby can sleep.
And yes, I am ashamed that I have let Evan's sleep situation become such a drama but I'm just being honest with you. From the past years of this whiny blog you know I am not capable of letting a baby cry & I'm not in the right frame of mind yet to do the whole settling routine training that will undoubtedly take hours of my life every day & night. It's really soul-sucking that by the time you realize you've got to do something about the sleep situation, you don't have the energy to make the changes. I remember with Ben it was beyond desperate (taking 2+ hours to get him to sleep every night then he was up about 3 times each night too & would take ages to feed back to sleep) but I was way too fragile to be able to address the situation.
When you're already exhausted & existing on too little sleep, the thought of losing more sleep is not something you can process. And that's even when you know it's only for a limited time & that everyone will be better off in the end.
So anyway, once Evan is finally sound asleep & I've crept out & he's stayed asleep until he's in that lovely floppy totally gone stage, we move him to his crib when we go to bed. The first night he stayed in there a good few hours before waking up grumpy then I put him back in our bed to feed him to sleep again, then totally planned to put him back in his bed but the thing is he's a cluster feeder overnight at the moment. I remember Ben being the same way when he was teething (which seemed to be every other week or so for about a year solid)(that's right, he has teeth like sharks that are constantly replacing themselves) so once he's in our bed & he's attached himself to me, that's pretty much it - I can't detach myself without him waking up squawking. Seriously, even just moving to switch which side he's draining seems to break his little heart.
And then there's Benny Wenny, who has been a champion sleeper for months now. He's being affected by naps again, which is hell on earth. If he sleeps during the day AT ALL he is screwed for the night. It doesn't matter if it's an hour-long nap at daycare (& I know he needs one there or he's a disaster all afternoon for them & us) or a 5-minute doze in the car - they throw him off equally. We put him down around 7.30pm every night but he didn't actually fall asleep until about 9.30 last night & one night earlier this week - or last week? It's all blurring together - it was about 11.00 in the end.
THEN he has suddenly started getting up before the crack of dawn, around 5.00am, to join us in bed. I have no idea how this started but it is awful. You'd think after sleeping with us for the first year of his life, he'd be comfy sleeping with us but he's really not - when he joins us he just tosses & turns for a few minutes, then starts playing & pestering us. He has fallen asleep exactly ONCE & that was yesterday morning.
This routine obviously disturbs Evan's suckling, which has been disturbing my sleep all night, causing me to toss, turn, huff, puff & check the internet on my ipod, which disturbs Marcel's sleep. So every early morning finds the four members of the little family in our bed - all without adequate amounts of sleep, all grumpy, no one ready to start the day.
Delightful, hey? Now we realize that daylight savings ends here this weekend so he'll be joining us at 4.00am instead. Turns out kids don't get that whole time change thing. Is it wrong to consider drugging him? Mother of the Year here.
Anyhoo, that's our life these days. We'll just keep going because we don't actually have any other option, do we? At least we've finally booked our vacation! It's a couple of months away & I'll tell you more about when I'm in a cheerier mood. I am focusing on this holiday as it is literally the only thing in my life dangling out there for me to look forward to. I don't think I have to tell you I already have multiple to-do lists going & am quietly squirrelling things away for carry-ons, etc but don't tell my husband or he'll roll his eyes at me.
Hope your week has been wonderful. I'm off to administer teething drops & Bonjela to my suffering little soldier & try to sneak a shower, which will at least make me feel slightly less zombie-eque. xo
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