“No, no, no, Michael,” you’re thinking to yourself. The phrase is “TWO steps forward, ONE step back.”
I know. And I know
what I said.
The last few nights seem worse. How is this happening? Aaron still isn’t going to sleep until late. He stays up through naps and when he does nap
he often naps for less than an hour. You’d
think he’d be tired by 9:00 p.m., but no.
Maybe 10:00 p.m.? Ha! Hopefully by 11:00 p.m. he’s in bed but that’s
usually after screaming for a while. I’m
not quite sure what makes him finally fall asleep. I’m sometimes not totally coherent after
rocking, shushing, walking, and bouncing for two hours. Last night he went to sleep about
10:00-something and an hour later I heard a shriek. He does this too. It seems he gets scared in the middle of his
sleeping and calls out. Usually, if you
rush to him and stroke his head or chest you can get him back to sleep. But take a few seconds too long and we’re
back to the rocking, shushing, walking and bouncing for a while. Aaron will only fall asleep on me. That’s a great way to get him to close his
eyes. After 10, 15, 20 minutes (it doesn’t
matter how long) of Aaron being deep in sleep his eyes pop open the first moment that I stand up to bring him to bed.
The shrieks now wake up Jeff so that’s another reason to nip
it in the bud. Jeff will usually sleep a
few hours between his feedings (3 hours on average, sometimes 2.5 hours but also 4
hours from time to time!) but isn’t always falling asleep right after the
feedings now. Last night I fed him about
12:30 a.m. and got smiles after the milk was gone. Don’t get me wrong. I love smiles from my babies, but in the
middle of the night it’s all about business.
Don’t smile! Smile means we’re
having fun and this is not the time for fun.
This is the time for sleeping! Yes, you're adorable, Jeff, but go back to sleep!
“You’re starving your baby by not giving him rice cereal.”
Yep. I’ve heard that
one from a lot of people. One co-worker
literally told me that I was starving
my children. At the last pediatrician’s
appointment the doctor said to start giving them cereal. We’ve been giving them cereal for the last
week and a half. Last night we made sure
to give the boys cereal at their last feeding before bed. Did it work?
Two and a half hours after that feeding I find myself with a two babies and two bottles. (Sigh)
I know, in a few months I’ll miss this. I’ll wish I got to hold my babies at
night. In my very first entry of this
blog I said I’d use these entries to help me be grateful for what I have. I know this entry seems like I’m complaining
and I’ve lost sight of all the good that has happened. I won’t make excuses. I am complaining a little. The sleep deprivation and screaming at 2 a.m.
just get to a person after so many months. I just need to...
Aaron just screamed after 20 minutes of sleeping. He’s awake.
To be continued.
At least their adorable right?? I will admit that is the part I am least looking forward too.. I hope it passes quickly for you though, HUGS!
ReplyDeleteWell for us rice cereal did NOTHING to help put Jude to sleep/keep Jude alseep. We tired just feeding it to him and rice cereal “bottles” or milkshakes as I liked to call them. Didn’t help at all. The only thing that helped was doing the methods in the Sleep Easy Solution book. It has some parts on how the system works with twins also. Check it out, can’t hurt. And I’ve heard that around 4 months you get sleep regression where things get worse, but then they get much better. Let’s hope that is what you are having happen right now!
ReplyDeleteThe sleep regression thing is huge. I googled it and I think that's it. I'm hoping to post something about it soon.
DeleteI'm not sure if I've mentioned this but do you have a noise machine? We didn't have it for two nights on Kauai and she woke up after a few hours...so we kinda figured it was that. Plus the swaddling, which I know you do. Hang in there. Sorry it's so rough! It'll pass! And listen to that song "You're Gonna Miss This" it's perfect! hugs.
ReplyDeleteWe had an air purifier on for white noise and I admit it might have helped a little, but it wasn't foolproof. We haven't used it for a while so we may go back to trying it. Hopefully it'll help.
DeleteIts posts like this that make me question what I'm doing. But its the photo at the top of the blog that reminds me why I'm doing it. I need to go to sleep and get some zzz's while I still can! Hang in there.
ReplyDeleteIt's totally worth it. Can't wait to hear your stories.
DeleteThat's bull shit, pardon my language. I don't believe for a second you'll look back on those times when, even though you were so tired you could literally cry, but you still had to get up to attend one child or the other, fondly. Not ever. I find it more likely you'll block out most of it, eventually, as we do all traumatic events. Which is not to say we don't all want more snuggly, happy times with our babies , we just don't want them at 3a.m.
ReplyDeleteWhen my son was an infant, every morning, around 5, when I could no longer handle the constant wakings, I'd put him in his swing, where he would finally sleep soundly for a few precious hours. It took a lot for a hippie, co-sleeping mama like myself to get to that point. And then he grew out of the thing eventually. And, for a good while, I literally wondered if I was becoming depressed from lack of sleep. But sleep comes a lot easier these days, most nights. Although a full 8 hours is still few and far between. I empathize with you.
I don't mean to sound all doom and gloom; I'm actually a rather happy person in general, but that sleep thing is a touchy subject. :-)
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