Sleep Again

Oh to write about sleep or to not. I think I will. My life is consumed with thoughts of sleep. And to think some people have children who sleep from the time they are born and it's never an issue. I'm envious of them but not as jealous as I used to be. I keep thinking that maybe since my children don't sleep so well that they'll have some other area that they'll be super at. Potty training? Eating? Spelling? Really. You have to think that there is going to be a consolation prize for all the time you spending soothing your babies to sleep. Maybe that is the consolation prize-- more time with your baby. But when the baby is crabbing all over you because he didn't get enough sleep it feels more like a booby prize for being the only idiot parent who can't seem to get their child into a crib and on to a sleep schedule.

Noah is teething again. I think his upper front teeth are coming in. Of course last time I was sure he couldn't be teething because he was too young. He was. And now he's teething again. After this pair only 16 more teeth to go!

Although some sleep books claim that teething really doesn't affect sleep. They are all wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. Even the on-call nurse at Noah's pediatrician's office read to me from her cue card that "teething hurts the mother more than it hurts the baby". That's a sack of horse manure. Noah is in pain. He can't relax and instead of taking a minute to work up to screaming, he does it now in seconds. That means ahhh ahhh turns into AHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHH! Poor little fella.

Noah continues to sleep like and infant. He wakes up every two hours and then somewhere around two are three in the morning he starts waking up every hour until he wakes up fully at 5 or 6 am. It's just killing me. I need more uninterrupted sleep. I think he does too. He sleeps in only 40 minute increments during the day and now needs to nap every 1 1/2 or 2 hours a day. By the end of the day he is very very crabby. We tried to let him cry to sleep. He cried every night for 40 minutes. And it wasn't just a little whimpering but all out 'save me I'm going to die' crying that lasted over a month. So now we're doing the gentler way. I nurse and bounce and then pat him to sleep. We go in every time he wakes up and pat him to sleep until he's it's been a couple of hours and then I nurse him.

I am comforted only by the fact that I know this won't last forever. Eventually he'll learn to put himself back to sleep and then we'll all be getting more sleep around here. He is a much better sleeper than Hannah ever was. I have to remember that she now sleeps very well and putting her to bed is a joy. Once she is asleep she sleeps all night.