Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Returning to the newborn days of sleep deprivation

I'm not back in the swing yet. I keep thinking I've crossed a hurdle, hit a milestone, arrived. In many ways we have. We go to the park, we go to Sonic, and we go to church. That is it for now but I think it counts, don't you? Oh, and don't forget we go to school.

Which Ty still calls church.

This morning I asked him if he wanted to go to school, (hitting it a little early-he goes on Thursdays,) and he said, "No okay. No school. No church. Bye bye school. Bye bye church." Two steps forward, 43 steps back.

We have started having play dates. Remember Heather, who made this pretty blog for me? She brought her circus over to play with mine. It was a fun new tradition of chaos. Heather, hope y'all come back!
This is Tatum, Heather's second baby, who is coincidentally 14 months younger than her brother. Think we've got something in common other than the chaos. Or we have the same chaos. I knew I liked her when we met in the nursing mothers room many many months ago. I didn't get a good picture of her son Trevor because he didn't stand still for a combined three seconds the whole time he was here. And that was just fine. Her kids have the prettiest eyes I've ever seen. My camera doesn't do them justice and my Lightroom-using husband wasn't around to help a sister out. Or a wife in this case.
Can you hear me smiling that it's not THIS HOT anymore. Praise God we've survived another summer. It's all downhill from here. I took this a few weeks ago and thought, "One day it won't be this hot and we'll all be outside, happy again..." and before I knew it the "one day" was here.

We scheduled Joy's CT scan to double-check her lung and it's on September 8th. We are hopeful the results will confirm what we learned back in May and it will be clear. It will be adios specialist visits unless you count the pulminologist we have to take Charlie to. Just mentioning that makes me a little squeamish about the fall illnesses. Dear Lord give me patience and a positive attitude about fall illnesses. I'm a big scaredy cat when it comes to facing all three of the kids sick at one time. I mean, really, how am I going to do it? When Sean is on a trip? Really? I'm taking applications now for a nanny. I can't really pay anything.

Any takers?

Yeah I haven't had much luck yet finding one.

For a few months after Charlie was born, (but before I realized I was pregnant with Joy,) we talked about adoption in our future. The somewhat far future but still--Sean and I both talked about the possibility but our visions were a little different. He said there are so many older children who need a home and so many boys who need a dad to help them find their way. I agreed about the older children but threw in I was hoping for an older girl who may or may not have child-rearing skills. You know, she could really help out with the babies and all.

Oh I kid.

On to more realistic and important topics. Joy has started rolling over and waking herself up. She sleeps on her stomach and when she rolls over looks like a turtle on its back, arms and legs flailing (one of my ?? words--spell check likes it so maybe it's right?) It started four nights ago and has gotten progressively worse. First night she woke up twice. Last night she woke up 9 times. In a span of 10 hours.

Y'all know how good I am at little/no sleep and how whiny I get when I have a few nights in a row of broken sleep. I wonder where my kids get it? So here I go again asking for help. What has worked for you? What should I do? I went through sleep issues with Ty but he was older and could already roll both ways. Charlie just laid there on her back for hours without any training. God love her she was an easy baby.

What should I do? Right now after consulting a few relatives/baby experts I have been going in and flipping her back to her tummy and leaving. She goes right back to sleep. I haven't fed her during the night in a couple months and don't want to start again because I think it would confuse her. I've tried leaving her and she will cry for as long as I leave her, so that's not working either. She forgot how to sleep on her back! Any ideas?

7 comments:

Carley said...

I'm so sorry! I totally know that feeling since Cody just went through it. I did what you are doing....just went over and flipped him back and rubbed his back until he fell asleep again. That lasted about a week. Now he only rolls over in the mornings or at the end of a nap when it's time to get up anyway. But, when we first lay him down for a nap he wants to roll over so we let him. Then he plays for a few minutes and then cries. We let him cry for about 10 minutes and then go roll him over to his belly and he's so tired from crying he goes to sleep. He plays happily on his back but won't sleep that way at all! We've been trying really hard to teach him to roll the other way now. You can bring Joy to my house and I'll watch her so you can get a full nights sleep! :) I'm serious. I have just learned that as cute as it is....this "new trick" is not fun at night!! Hang in there. Oh, and I'm up for going to the park today!

Anonymous said...

Aww... thanks for the nod Mary! We look forward to many more playdates! As for sweet Joy... I really don't know! By the time mine rolled over and got mad, they were able (with some concentrated effort) to get back over on their own (you know how it's easier rolling the other way).

Maybe for sanity's sake, you could use a positioner to somehow keep her from rolling? Then work on rolling during waking hours until she's mastered it (you know, in all your free time when you can give Joy your undivided attention-HA!)

Miss Mommy said...

Okay- practice with her all day, rolling her over and over and over again so she can learn it on her own. I would still flip her at night b/c you'll both get more sleep that way.

We Three Smiths + 1 said...

I was just about to say what Heather said...we used one of the positioners with Ryder for a really long time...maybe that would hold her in place. Poor girl! Hopefully this phase won't last long and the sleep-full nights will return!

Carley said...

oh i totally forgot we tried the positioner. Cody would wiggle out of it so we don't use it. you can have mine if you want.

Carley said...

Oh...and like Emily said...practice with her. I've been practicing with Cody and he can now go from his back to his tummy. He doesn't do it all the time but he does know how. :) I'm so glad she slept so well last night!!!

Rachel and Ian Kirkland said...

such a bummer! i can't believe he was up 9 times!~!!! ahhhhhhhh! you are a trooper! i haven't gone through that with my boys but maybe that is because they are swaddle junkies and don't kick the swaddle till they can almost walk! :) (kidding a bit there...)