How unusual is that!?! Both kiddos are sleepin...Luke up in his bed and Ellie is here next to me at the 'puter, swaddled and snoozing. The house is quiet. Nice! And here I am, for the first time in who knows how long, with nothing urgent on the 'to do' list and no computer work that needs finishing up. I relish this moment...this peacefulness. Its rare these days.
Well.....I think Miss Ellie has been going through a growth spurt this past week. Since I posted last Friday, life seems to be about very little other than feeding my very hungry newborn. And I have now been given a very unpleasant refresher course in sleep deprivation. Argh! This week was the pits! She woke every two hours in the night for several days straight and wore me out! There were a few nights in there where I questioned my resolve to breastfeed! My complete lack of logic and extreme fatigue at 2am lends itself to some pretty irrational and crazy thoughts. Several nights in a row I was ready to burst into tears and give up. Mostly because I was just so, so, SO tired. One night looked like this:
8:30pm Feed Ellie, change her diaper, swaddle and rock.
9:15pm Ellie's down for bed in her crib, and I am off to bed too (with high hopes of a few
consecutive hours!)
10:35pm Ellie's awake, screaming for food!
10:39pm Ellie's done eating after a mere 4 minutes at the breast. I try tickling, talking, changing her diaper, and burping her to rouse her enough to eat on the other side. No luck. I wrap her back up and put her to bed. It is now 11:15.
12:45am Ellie is awake again, having not taken a full feeding and is hungry. :( We repeat the scenario of the 10:30 feeding, except this time I am falling asleep the moment she latches and cannot seem to wake myself enough to rouse her. I attempt to wake her and myself for what seems like hours, but again to no avail. I give in to my exhaustion; wrap her up and put her in bed...this time without changing her diaper. I feel like the most neglectful mommy on the planet as I stumble back to bed. Forget Babywise, I think. It's not working!!! It is somewhere around 1:15.
2:55am Oh will this child EVER sleep????? It would be one thing if she was taking full feedings and still waking to eat, but I'm growing extremely frustrated with her and the fact that she wakes to eat, but then falls asleep without much more than a snack! And there seems to be no waking this child once she is dosing. I try EVERYTHING! Cold washcloths even. Nothing works! She snoozes on. Does my breastmilk have a secret sleep inducer in it, or what???I'm near tears...that is, in between my head bobbing forward from falling asleep myself. I secretly despise the fact that Ty is enjoying the luxury of uninterrupted sleep down the hall. I want to scream and wake him! I wrap Ellie up, put her in bed and throw myself into my own bed with a thud. Ty simply rolls over and begins to snore. Argh!! It's almost 4am...I must've dosed longer than I thought in the glider.
4:30am. Ty's alarm goes off, waking me, but I am so exhausted that I fall immediately back to sleep.
5:15am. Ellie stirs. I hear her through the monitor. Then she cries softly. Then a few moments of silence. Sweet, I think...she's going back to sleep!
5:21am Her cries begin again, but this time with more vigor. I drag myself out of the bed and into her room. I decide to take her back to bed with me, but opt not to try to feed her. I don't think I can handle anymore of that. So I pop the binkie in her mouth, cuddle up with her in my bed and pray for a little more rest. She will have NONE of that though, and fusses on and off. The last time I look at the clock, its 6:10am and its starting to get light outside.
6:20am I must've dosed off, because I am awakened the familiar bang of Luke's baby gate hitting his bedroom door. He's awake and ready asking to go 'down-dares'. Apparently he's hungry too, because he tells me so. Guess there is no rest for the weary. I walk down the hall, with eyes half-shut, repeating my new mantra... "COFFEE.....STRONG COFFEE!!!!"
And so have the days (and nights) been lately. Exhausting. But last night, the cycle seems to have been broken. Ellie ate at 6:30pm, slept until 10:45 (4 hours and 15 minutes!), took a full feeding and I was in bed by 11:15. I slept through until 2:15 (3 1/2 hours between feedings!) when she woke to eat again. She took a good feeding then too, but not quite as well as the first (heck, I'm not complaining though!) and I was back in bed by 2:45, having not even fallen asleep in the rocker! Whoohoo! She didn't wake again until 5:15, when I opted to bring her to my room and put her in the bouncer. Not because I was so exhausted and needed more rest (I actually felt great!), but because I was hoping to hold her hunger off until 6:15 or 6:30, so we could officially start our day then. It worked and we started our new routine for the day at 6:25, with Luke awake and a nice, warm cup of coffee in my hand! :) So today, I have renewed hope that maybe....just maybe, our Babywise routine is working after all and she just might begin to sleep better. We'll see. Today's been good. I just hope it continues.
I think Luke senses that I'm in a good mood and that makes him feel at liberty to be a stinker today. He is just being feisty. Seems like everything is a battle, with whining and 'back talk' to boot. Not sure what this is all about, but I hope its short lived. We had Gym this morning, and while he was great most of the class, he even threw himself on the floor in a tantrum there once too....something he's never done. Hmmm. I'm a little baffled. Things seem to have gotten back to normal the last few weeks with him. We've had some really great days! Maybe he's getting a bug or something. Hope not, but I've been achy and sore in the evenings the last few nights and have had all the feelings of a fever without really having one, so maybe he IS fighting something. Time will tell.
It's nearly 2:15 now and I have my 6 week post-partum checkup with Dr. Hage in about an hour, so I had better get going. Oh! That reminds me....for those of you who know my friend Laura....she had her baby, Madeline Elizabeth, early Tuesday morning (1:50am!). She weighed a tiny 5 lbs 11 oz. and was 18 1/2 inches long. She was near term....36 weeks and 5 days and as of this morning is doing pretty well, although she might have to stay a night in the NICU for some photo therapy if her billirubin levels continue to rise. But we'll just pray for that not to be the case! Other than that though, everyone is healthy and happy! Praise the Lord! :) Now Ellie has a playmate....just 5 1/2 weeks younger! :)
Okay....I'm off for now. More to come.....
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