Middle of the Night Musings

At 3:30 this morning I was on Pinterest while feeding Oliver a bottle.  He is three months old and still wakes up every night around this time, unlike his sister who had been sleeping soundly through the night for about 6 weeks by this age.  Anyway, I came across a blog with tips on how to get your baby to sleep 8 hours a night by 8 weeks and 12 hours a night by 12 weeks.  Obviously, this caught my interest so I read.  And what the blogger said made sense.  Keep to a schedule with feeding and naps.  Be diligent about putting baby down awake so he can learn to soothe himself to sleep.  Move baby to his crib at 1 month.  There are lots of other useful ideas as well.  (Link at bottom.) 

With Emma I did not do these things.  I kept to a feeding schedule, but I let her nap as she pleased as long as she didn’t sleep for longer than 2-3 hours at a time during the day.  I rocked her to sleep nightly.  And though she started sleeping through the night at only 7 weeks, we inevitably ended up having lots of sleeping issues later when she hit six months and started waking several times for me to rock her to sleep again.  At 9 months we tried some modified cry it out techniques which got her sleeping through the night again, but she is now 2½ and still cries unless I stay in her room with her until she falls asleep.  For the past 5 months or so she has been coming into my room at some point during the night and sleeping the rest of the night in my bed.  We definitely have some night time issues.

While I was pregnant with Oliver, I vowed that I would learn from the mistakes I made with Emma.  I would not rock him to sleep.  I would lay him down awake.  I would do whatever I could to avoid the heart wrenching nights of cry it out, the endless amount of time sitting by a toddler bed waiting for sleep to come, the constant middle of the night cries for Mommy.  And then Oliver was born and something odd happened.  I suddenly felt like the mistakes I made with Emma were not that I rocked her and coddled her too much, but that I didn’t do it enough.

Oliver falls asleep each night while drinking a bottle.  I do not lay him down awake.  In my defense, though, babies do not like to be laid down awake.  They do not soothe themselves to sleep, they fuss and cry.  Once he is asleep I put him in his crib in his room, but when he wakes up for a feeding in the wee hours of the morning I bring him to bed with me and keep him there the rest of the night.  I know, I know.  I’m practically doing the opposite of what any baby sleep expert would recommend.  But I love cuddling with Oliver; I love the way his warm, snugly little body feels pressed up against me with his little head resting in the crook of my arm.  Sometimes, despite being exhausted, I don’t fall asleep right away because I’m so busy watching his perfect, peaceful little face in the semi-dark light.  He is the most amazing little thing, and I feel like I wouldn’t trade those moments with him for all the uninterrupted nights of sleep in the world. 

It actually makes me a little sad that I didn’t do the same thing with Emmalee.  I now completely regret the whole cry it out experience I put us both through.  I wish I would have just brought her to bed with me and soaked up her littleness and yummy baby scent as much as I possibly could.  To make it up to her, I now allow her into my bed without complaint.  And to be completely honest, I kind of like it when she’s sleeping in the bed beside me. 

So here I am, two babies in and more of a push over than ever.  But what I’ve come to realize is that the moments when they are little are so fleeting.  They won’t need me at night forever.  Someday they will be preteens who are too big for hugs and cuddles.  Someday they will be teenagers who are too cool for Mommy.  Someday they will be adults living on their own.  I’ll have plenty of time to sleep then.  For now I don’t want to sleep, I just want to squeeze my babies for as long as they’ll let me.

http://delightfulmomstuff.blogspot.com/2012/02/newborn-sleeping-through-night.html

Outnumbered

On June 7^th my son, Oliver Blake, was born.  He arrived via scheduled c-section, and though I can’t say that being cut open to have a baby removed from my body was pleasant, the overall experience was very much preferable to what I went through two years ago when Emmalee came into the world.  Now, a little over a month later, I am essentially recovered from childbirth and I find myself attempting to navigate the tumultuous mother-of-two waters.

This will probably seem like an obvious statement, but having two children is quite a bit more challenging than having just one.  My biggest difficulty with this entire situation is that I am outnumbered.  Emma and Ollie seem to sense this and inevitably start screaming with conflicting needs at the exact same moment.  Ollie needs a bottle and Emma needs a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  Emma needs a diaper change and Ollie decides sitting in his bouncer for one more moment would be torture.  Ollie needs a diaper change and Emma wants to be fed cereal and milk.  Emma wants me to help her build a castle and Ollie insists on being held.  I spend all day being pulled in opposite directions and trying to find a way to balance the chaos.  Luckily I am an expert in patience.

This leads to the next biggest issue I am dealing with, which is the constant, overwhelming guilt I feel.  Prior to having two babies I never realized how multidimensional guilt could be.  I feel guilty for holding Oliver too much and not playing with Emma enough, but then I feel guilty for how much time he spends in his bouncer while I play with and take care of her.  I feel guilty about how much television Emma has been watching.  I feel guilty about how much time we spend at home.  Last summer Emma and I were constantly on the go, but Oliver’s presence has put a damper on our adventure schedule this year.  And though Emma has adjusted to our new baby better than I would have expected, I know it is still difficult for her to suddenly have to share me and my attention with someone else.  So I feel guilty for wanting and loving Oliver so much when it causes Emma such strife, and then I feel guilty for feeling guilty because that isn’t fair to him.  I find myself in another constant balancing act, attempting to love them both enough but not too much so that neither child is favored or slighted.  

Compiling these challenges exponentially is the barely manageable sleep deprivation.  Oliver needs to eat every 3-4 hours, but will usually go at least one 5-6 hour stretch in the night.  That means, theoretically, I get to sleep 4-5 hours, get up for an hour to feed him, and then sleep 2-3 more hours.  It’s not ideal, but it’s certainly workable.  The problem, of course, is that I’m not dealing with just Oliver.  At some point in the previously described situation Emma wakes up, often sometime during that 4-5 hour stretch of sleep that is necessary to maintain my sanity, and I am up with her anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour finding pacis, getting her some water, trekking from her room to my room with the necessary stuffed animals before she will finally settle in my bed and go back to sleep.  So each night I find myself attempting to balance meeting the nocturnal needs of my children and attempting to get enough fragments of sleep in for myself so that I can function the next day without having a mental breakdown.  

My dad asked me if I enjoy having two children and I answered honestly that I think I will one day.  I love both of my children and I enjoy them so much separately.  Emma is so much fun to play with and she always makes me laugh.  Oliver is so tiny and cute and fun to cuddle.  But put them together and mostly it’s just hard.  I know a lot of it has to do with how young they both are and that with time things will get better.  I will eventually be able to get them on a manageable schedule, Oliver won’t need nighttime feedings forever, and at some point they will be able to play together.  The potential for enjoyment is certainly there.  For now I will continue to be patient and will make an effort to enjoy the moments between the chaos, because I know they are fleeting.  I will try to remember at 3:00 in the morning, when Emma has just finally fallen asleep beside me an hour before and Oliver is now ready to be fed, that there will come a day when I will miss how little and needy my children are now.  Instead of giving in to the urge to beat my head against a wall and sob, I will look at Emma’s peaceful face and memorize the innocent, trusting look in Oliver’s eyes because when I am old and gray (assuming, of course, that I survive until then) that is what I will want to remember; not the exhaustion or the screaming or the tears, but the reasons I wanted these babies in the first place.  

Dear Future Self

I am miserable.  My back hurts.  My feet hurt.  My ankles are swollen.  My entire pelvis feels like someone has been using it as a punching bag.  It is excruciating to lift my leg enough to step into my pants each morning.  If I move too suddenly it feels like a knife is being driven into my groin.  I am tired; agonizingly, unbearably tired and yet I can’t sleep.  Between waking up to pee and the Olympic event of turning from one side to the other, I’m up every couple of hours.  I am cranky, moody and unreasonably irritable.  I’m lightheaded much of the day.  Breathing has become a chore.  Walking is a far from pleasant experience.  Oliver’s movements are now uncomfortable at best, downright painful at worst.  I don’t feel like me anymore; I feel like a barely humanized incubator.

On top of these physical discomforts, there is so much that I miss.  I miss coffee.  I miss drinking diet soda without feeling guilty about the artificial sweetener.  I miss sleeping on my stomach.  I miss holding Emmalee without feeling like I might collapse and die from the effort.  I miss having the energy to play with her.  I am constantly concerned about how this pregnancy is affecting her, and I’m pretty sure that she can now sense my misery.  Lately Emma has taken to approaching me with concern in her eyes and gently kissing my belly.  I can’t wait to be strong and fun and capable for her again.

Normally I would hate to write such a self-pitying and whiny blog.  Despite my unhappiness, I try to keep my complaints mostly to myself.  However, this blog is being written with a specific purpose in mind.  You see, something happens to many moms when their youngest child passes their first birthday.  A magical hormone is released that softens all the unpleasant memories of pregnancy and child-birth, wrapping them up in pretty pink cellophane until they can only be recalled with fondness (I’m pretty sure this has been scientifically proven).  You begin to have crazy thoughts like, “Pregnancy is such fun” or “I miss the way those little kicks felt” and, worst of all, “I want to do that again”.  I am writing this blog so that when these thoughts strike me after Oliver’s first birthday I can remember this exact moment, 8 months pregnant and miserable with 5 more weeks and a c-section still to endure.

Now yes, I do realize that the end product of all this suffering is a baby.  And though babies tend to bring about their own set of discomforts and worries, they are without a question completely worth the sacrifices.  Perhaps though, remembering these despondent moments at the end of this pregnancy will at the very least give me pause when I begin thinking that another baby is a good and sane idea.  I am not ready to completely rule out the possibility of a third child, but I would like the way I feel right now to at least play a role in the decision.  

Future self, please read and then re-read these words.  You are not a fan of being pregnant.  And, one last thing to consider, you get really, unfortunately, gigantically large when expecting.

 Five more weeks to go!

Bed Time Battles

For awhile it seemed as though bedtime was running smoothly.  Emmalee and I had a routine that we followed: bath, jammies, read some books and then into the crib she would go.  She lay down on her Brobee body pillow, snuggled Foofa to her chest, and I would tell her goodnight and leave the room without hearing a peep from her until the next morning.  It was blissful.

Now, our bedtime looks the same aside from one heart-wrenching factor.  Emma does not go down quietly anymore.  We follow the same routine but when I put her in her crib she immediately dissolves into tears.  And even worse than the tears are her sorrowful words.  “See you in the morning, Mommy.”  “We play tomorrow.”  “Bye bye, Mommy.”  All choked out through sniffles in a voice drenched in despair. 

I leave her and stand in the hallway outside her door, feeling like evil incarnate as I stoically ignore her pleas of “Mommy, come back.”  This generally only lasts a few minutes, but those minutes are achingly, painfully long.

Truthfully, I am terrified to go back into her room once I’ve left because once she stops protesting she falls asleep and sleeps the entire night.  I’m so scared of messing up a good thing.  I don’t think a brief trip back into the room would do anything more than prolong the teary portion of the evening, though I honestly haven’t been brave enough to try yet.  And staying with her until she falls asleep is just out of the question.  What would probably start off as a ten or fifteen minute ordeal would likely get progressively longer until I’m trapped in her room for an hour or more waiting for her to doze off.  Not to mention that she would inevitably come to rely on my presence to be able to sleep, and we would be back to middle of the night torment for Mommy when she wakes and I’m no longer there.  I only have three short months before her little brother will become the tyrant of my night time hours, so it would be preferable to avoid this outcome.  Of course, I’m also worried that I could in some way be causing permanent trauma, damaging our relationship and her faith in me as her mother, and otherwise contributing to lasting psychological effects that I’ll be paying a therapist to sort out when Emma is in high school.  

I would really like to get the bedtime situation remedied, but I am unsure of how to proceed.  I would like to convince myself that Emma is just being her usual emotional, dramatic self and that she’ll eventually get over this without me having to do anything differently, but listening to her anguish each night is taking an emotional toll on me as well.  My mother has suggested that I try to talk it out with Emma, and though I’ve read that two year olds can be quite difficult to reason with, I am willing to give that a try.  This might just add to our night time struggles, but I am also planning to convert her crib into a toddler bed soon.  Perhaps it is the confinement that Emma is suddenly not so pleased with.  Maybe getting out of bed to have Mommy usher her right back will at least reassure her that Mommy is still nearby and has not completely abandoned her (which is the conclusion I fear she reaches each night when she gives up on crying and goes to sleep).  Or, more likely, the freedom to get up will just drag out both bedtime and her tears.

Why does bedtime have to be so difficult?  I know, I know, that’s like asking why we exist.  We are just here and toddlers just don’t like to go to sleep.  Some of the many mysteries of the universe.  I guess I’ve been spoiled these last few months with the hour or two of down time in the evenings and the sleeping eight hours at night anyway.  Whatever I come up with to fix our current predicament will likely only be temporary, as Oliver’s arrival is sure to shake up the entire house.  I will try not to mourn as I resign myself to after dark dilemmas and a general zombie like existence.  And I will continue to count down the days until I can finally get reacquainted with my beloved Starbucks to ease the pain.