9:30pm lights out, sleepy
9:32pm cat wants under the covers
9:34pm, I roll over
9:35pm, cat jumps over my head so as to be on theother side of me, he prefers under the covers on my front side
9:36pm, I don't like the cat so close to my face when trying to sleep b/c I am mildly allergic and he makes me cough
9:37pm, I roll over again
9:38pm, cat leaves to get a kitty-crunchy snack
9:42pm, cat starts batting at my face, I pull covers over my head
9:43pm, cat starts attacking my hands just under the covers
9:44pm, I let him back under the covers
9:58pm, I roll over
10pm, cat jumps over my head to be on my front side
10:12pm, baby starts to cry
10:20pm, baby is still crying, harder now
10:25, I call out to baby and beg her to go back to sleep
10:27pm, cat starts bugging me again
10:30pm, I freak out and kick cat off of me and go to baby's room, she is standing in her crib totally freaking out crying
10:31pm, baby is in my arms asleep as I rock in the rocking chair
10:39pm, I lay sleeping baby down in her crib
10:40pm, baby starts crying again as I walk away from crib
10:41-43pm, I take cat outside and leave him there for the night
10:44pm, baby is crying really hard now
10:45pm, I close baby's door and my bedroom door and lay back down in bed, noticing that the sheets stink and wishing I had had time over the weekend to change them, but it was ridiculously hard just to find the time to wash my & baby's laundry and put all my clothes away that I had dropped on the floor in a state of exhaustion over the last 2 weeks
10:50pm, baby is still crying, and I have rolled over about 10 times trying to pretend like I can't hear it
10:55pm, the tension in my neck and back feels like a jack-in-the-box and I wish I could throw something across the room
11pm, I notice the clock and start feeling really mad that there is no way in hell I am going to get even a decent night's sleep at this point. Baby is still yowling in the other room.
11:10pm, baby is still yowling.
11:15pm, still crying
11:20pm, still crying
11:25pm, I go into baby's room, she is laying down facing the wall, crying. I pick her up and take her to the rocking chair, start to nurse her
11:40pm, try to unlatch myself from her asleep suckle-of-steel, she fusses a little but falls back to sleep
11:43pm, I lay her back down in her crib, she stays asleep as I leave the room
11:45pm, I am back in bed, wide awake
11:50pm, decide to blog about it
I honestly don't get this. Millions of years of evolution have mothers and babies coexisting. Adults have to sleep more than 1 hour at a time, and more like 6-8. While I know that cosleeping is an option, it isn't a viable one for me. Now that M is so mobile, she will crawl off the edge of the bed easily before I would be awake enough to notice. It is way too dangerous. Plus, every time I roll over I was waking her up. Our ancestors slept in nest for criminy sake, and that has all the same complicating factors as my bed. How did this work? Why can't I get a decent amount of sleep? I am honestly feeling like I might lose my mind...
I am so sorry...
ReplyDeleteHow did the rest of the night go? Did she keep waking up? With my kids, what you described so far -- screaming when put down, repeatedly waking up -- would indicate an ear infection.
What I highly recommend to preserve your sanity is take advantage of your tenured faculty position and stay home to nap. You are under a lot of stress, on your own with a baby, so you need to recharge. Just stay at home once or twice a week and sleep until you feel better. This difficult period won't last forever, I promise! Mads will start sleeping predictably through the night, every night... eventually. You just need to take it one day at the time until that happens and do absolutely all that you can to keep your wits intact (skipping work to nap/eat bonbons/watch TV included).
Best wishes and fingers crossed!
Mommy's could nap during the day when babies were sleeping, not bust thier arses working hard! That is how it was done long ago, and not so long ago. :)
ReplyDeletePS. That sounds about how my nights are minus the cat, add another kid who manages to have bad dreams on the rare night baby sleeps longer. Or she gets up really early when baby is not up yet. I am so so so tired!
I'm so sorry. It sounds like it's time to kick the cat out of your room...???
ReplyDeleteoh, poor you!
ReplyDeleteTeething?
Can you wake her to feed her before you go to bed yourself? So put her down early, but then wake her at around 9 and put her back to bed, so that she doesn't do it herself? I've never had the problem you describe exactly, but that's what we did when N. was first transitioning to longer sleep cycles ...
My children were bad sleepers. I caved and finally ferberized both of them around 7 months. I wish I had done it sooner.
ReplyDeleteWith the new baby, I did a modification method where once the baby really started getting upset (15-20min crying), I would pick her up briefly, calm her down and then immediately place her back in bed. Repeat the cycle until she fell asleep. It was horrible for the first 3 days, then amazingly sleeping through the night after that. By 8 months kids don't need to eat at night, this is more of a comfort thing and crutch to fall asleep. If they go to bed very early (before 7pm, then you could feed her 1x before you go to bed).
I also recommend noise cancelling headphones - doesn't completely abolish the noise, but makes it less painful for the mom.
Good luck!
That sucks. Hope it goes better tonight.
ReplyDeleteNot saying that this will work for you, but for the last few years I have been going to bed at 8:30ish. Depending on how much I have to work with the kids during the night, I sleep until 8 AM (actually even later when a child was sick or nursing a lot and I could only sleep 2 hours at a time). If I do sleep through the night, I wake up much earlier and am happy for the extra time. Even though it's annoying to rearrange the schedule this way, at least I feel that I'm in control of something.