Let's Talk about Sleep

What good is a personal blog if you can't rant about sleep (or, the lack of) once in a while?

I am tired. Tired. Apparently, I've been selected to parent children who do not sleep well. I thought Tory's poor sleep habits were isolated and hoped (wished! prayed!) Aden would be better. He is in some ways, like how I can lay him in his crib in the evenings and he'll fall asleep on his own. That's one big mistake I made with Tory, and I vowed not to make the same mistake again. The trouble is, Aden is still waking up every two hours, if not more often, throughout the night. Couple that with Tory who's also waking up several times a night and I'm basically bouncing from bedroom to bedroom all night long. I haven't slept more than three hours in a row in four-and-a-half months. Last night was seriously brutal and I slept in 45 minute clips until 3:00am when both my children finally passed the hell out. Until 5:00am. (Thank you, Aden).

I'm so tired I have no ambition to do anything extra. I want to blog, but I don't have the mental energy to write. I literally stare at the screen for three minutes and then shut the lid. Laundry? Piled high. Most days, clothes don't even make it into the laundry room; I just chuck them down the stairs. Cleaning? Forget about it. My floors are dirty and I'm so stinking tired of picking crumbs off the bottom of my feet. My dining room table is smeared in jelly. This afternoon I sat in a sticky something stuck to the table bench and I about cried. I don't have the energy to keep up with all this.

The bright side is I feel less stabby towards Andi this time around. He helps put Tory to sleep at bedtime and I do appreciate it. But, nighttime wake-ups are all me (unless I'm in the middle of feeding Aden and then I usually jab Andi until he goes in to Tory's room to comfort her back to sleep). I accept it as my responsibility to care for the children in the middle of the night as part of my role as stay-at-home-mother, and Andi runs a successful business so I know he needs rest. It is easier to cope being a SAHM and not having to work outside of the house everyday. I am grateful for that. Still, I am running on fumes over here. I try to keep a positive attitude and say things like, "This will get better! Eventually the kids will sleep ... even if it's not until they're 15!" (insert: nervous laughter)

Seriously. Will it though? The logical part of me knows it will (the days are long, but the years are short ... and all that jazz) but I am eyeball-deep in the fog right now and it feels like that scenario will never be true.

Sadly, I'm thankful when Andi informs me he's sleeping downstairs in the spare bedroom at night. Then, I don't feel guilty about the kids keeping him up all night and our bed's free for a kid(s) to sleep with me. It definitely easier (though only enabling the problem) to let Tory sleep beside me, or Aden if she has yet to stumble her way into the master bedroom. Andi and I bit the bullet and purchased a king-size bed that's being delivered on Thursday. I think we both realized this crap isn't getting better anytime soon, so we might as well accommodate more appropriately.

I have fears Aden's not getting enough to eat, that he's not starving but not satisfied either, and that's why he's not sleeping well. I don't have much of a milk supply and had the same issue with Tory when she was his age. I'll spare the details for now, but because of this fear I have a hard time letting him cry at night. I visited a lactation consultant last month and she gave me advice to try to boost my supply, so we'll see if that helps. I started offering Aden pumped breast milk /or formula to see if he's still hungry after a nursing session, but he doesn't seem to take much by bottle. If he's truly hungry during the night, which he seems to be every two to three hours, then I will nurse him. I can't very well be upset with him for not sleeping if he's hungry. But, I also don't want to train him to eat all throughout the night if he doesn't need it. So other times he wakes up in the night, I get up and give him back his pacifier. He seems so restless when I watch him lay in his crib and I think that's how he loses it so frequently.

There's really no point to this post other than to word-vomit how brain-dead I am to someone/no one. Both kids are in bed and Andi's downstairs with a stomach ache so I really should take this time to rest myself, but I know Aden will be up in the next 45 minutes to eat. Why bother, right? Remember the days pre-kids when you could lay in bed whenever you wanted, for as long as you liked? I should have enjoyed it more back then.