It may not be men staring at goats, but I can only hope that I have the same kind of power when I stare at the baby monitor. I find myself staring at it in the middle of the night, trying to will it with my mind...to make the red lights stop flashing and jumping, for LM to go back to sleep....to soothe himself and settle back down. Surely, my mom powers are strong enough to will the red lights to stop.
We've managed to basically stop night feedings (mostly only as a last resort and even then, it doesn't really seem to help him go back to sleep any quicker) but he's still waking up in the middle of the night at least 3-4 nights a week. I thought we wouldn't be here at eight months. If you had asked me before I gave birth, I never ever would have thought he wouldn't be STTN by now. In fact, I was positive he would be by the time TH went back to work after six weeks......oh, how naive. We made such progress last week......last week.
But---here we are, nearly 3/4 of a year later, and I'm still hauling myself down the hallway once a night to pat him, soothe him, rock him, sit on the floor with my hand shoved through the slats of the crib letting him hold my finger while I attempt to stay upright and awake. And yes, TH does try to help---but LM just won't go back to sleep for him, so it falls to me.
Now that it's colder....it's harder than ever to leave my nest of blankets and walk down that hallway. I don't harbor any frustrations towards little monkey for this. I'm sure that it's me who needs to find a way to help him---maybe I enable him, maybe we need better daytime/nighttime/bedtime routines, maybe I'm missing the cues to help him sleep better.....who knows. But--it's just so much harder than I thought it would be at this point. I'm utterly exhausted...it's affecting my school life, my home life and just about everything in between. Because of course, after all those nights last week of FINALLY getting some sleep, he's not been feeling well and hasn't been eating very much during the day...aka not sleeping well again.
I know that it's part of mom life and I still never think twice about getting up when he needs me.....but I do stare at the monitor and listen and watch for the signs that show me he needs me or one day, that he won't need me and he'll drift back to sleep without getting upset, without crying, without something....because one day, we'll get there. I hope.
I'm sorry your baby isn't STTN... but enjoy it while you can. Eventually, he will be 16 years old and sneaking out at night :P
ReplyDeleteI'm here from ICLW (#111), nice to meet you!
i'm sorry he's still waking up, i hope he starts sleeping through the night regularly really soon. i know how frustrating it can be.
ReplyDeleteby the way, we have a video monitor and i stare at it all the time, very entertaining.
ReplyDeleteOh gosh, sleep. As I've said before, I feel your pain on this one. I wish I had an answer for you, and not to scare you, but we're still having problems at 18 months. We make progress, and then new teeth come in or Bean gets sick, and we lose ground again. I can already see how far we've come and I know that she'll get there eventually, but I know the desperation that comes from needing sleep so badly. I have so much respect for you because I have such a hard time getting through a day after a sleepless night, I can't imagine doing it if I was teaching. I hope things start to get better and that we both get some much needed sleep!!!
ReplyDelete@katery
ReplyDeleteSo jealous! I should've held my ground that we needed one--I know my paranoia better than that!
@Ordinary GirlI need to focus on the idea that a lot in life comes in the package of one step forward, two steps back. It does seem like when we make progress, something new happens. Thanks for reminding me that I need to focus on the progress that really is there. Sometimes I reread old posts on sleep and get it!
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