Sleep, or the Lack Thereof

Sleep.  Very LONG Sigh..... This is a serious battle.  Let me preface this by saying that we are by no means on the worst end of the sleep deprivation spectrum (i.e. the *clock* post over at Jon & Kelly). This I realize. We're probably somewhere in the middle, which is still VERY hard and VERY frustrating.  I think the last time I posted about sleep I was raving (big mistake) about how great Maddyx slept at night, and how awful his naps were. Well, the tables have completely turned. Maddyx's naps are all sorts of AWESOMENESS (not sure if that's an actual word, but it fits the bill) and his nighttime sleep stinks (understatement of the year)!  I am so tired of waking up every couple of hours to a screeching child only to find him perfectly fine when I arrive to his room.  And sometimes almost gitty.  Really?  Maddyx, honey, I DON'T DO WELL ON LITTLE SLEEP!  Didn't we cover this on day one?  Apparently not.  

The positive, the silver lining, or whatever you want to call it (can you tell I'm a bit crabby today?) is he *typically* will go to bed without any problems. We hang in his room for about 30 minutes or so reading books and having quiet time, and then we pick our 3 books, rock in the chair with his water bottle while I read to him. I put him down and he puts himself to sleep without any fuss. This is nice.  Especially considering we didn't start out like this.  Feels like at least some of my hard work has paid off.  I just miss the days where I put him down at 7:30 pm and didn't hear back from him until 6am-ish.  Where did those days go?!?  They were just here.  And I worked so hard to get to them.  Uuuurg!  

Last night.  He went down without a problem at 7:45 and woke up YELLING, not crying, YELLING, at about midnight.  I went to his room, laid him back down and rubbed his belly to soothe him.  He laid there for less than a minute and then popped right back up.  I laid him back down.  He got back up.  I laid him back down.  He got back up.  And we did this song and dance about four more times.  Then I grabbed a crappy pillow from the guest room and laid on the floor of his room.  I  just knew this was going to be a long night.  So I lay there on the hard floor, without a blanket, and not happy.  AT. ALL.  He stood up in his crib a few more times looking down at me and yelling, until eventually he gave up and laid down.  After about 45 minutes or so I heard the heavy breathing and knew he'd had fallen back asleep.  I went back to bed and tried to wind down myself, only to get a nice summons (yell) again at 2:00 am.  I think I might have mumbled "I hate my life" as I pulled myself out of bed AGAIN to do the same thing I just did!  (for the record, I don't really hate my life.  Just want to be clear on that!  But I'm not gonna lie, I do think those thoughts in the heat of the moment, in the middle of the night, when sleep deprived.  Not gonna lie.).  This time it took about an hour to get him to wind down.  Once he calmed down I decided to just take myself to guest bed right next to his room, so my husband could hopefully get some sleep, and I could await his next summons.  It's now 3:00 am and I'm thinking I've had about an hour and a half of sleep so far.  I laid there until 4:00 am listening to him wake, but not cry out, a couple more times and then I finally fell asleep from 4-6.  I think that gives me a total of 3.5 hours of sleep last night.  And I'm not a daytime napper, so what I get at night is all I have to work with for the entire day.  Looking back on this past week I think I'm averaging about 4 hours or so a night.   

THIS SUCKS!!  I AM FRUSTRATED!!  I'm only somewhat accepting of it because I'm still on leave from work, but my biggest fear is still battling this war when I'm back to work in January.  That is what I think about in the wee hours of the night, when I'm lying there awake.  And you know what makes this even more frustrating, he {was} sleeping through the night.  It was great.  I felt like we worked so hard to get to that point and now we're back to square one.  Again.  

So here I am at 9:30 pm, sipping on a glass of chardonnay, watching reality tv and blogging.  I should be taking advantage of the 8-midnight window of almost guaranteed sleep, but of course I can't sleep.  So here I am.

Wish me luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maddyx - you're luck you're so darn cute!  Seriously.