That's what it feels like anyway. I have gone way beyond tired actually, and a little past exhausted, i need a new word to describe how chronically lacking in sleep my life is, i'm just too tired to think what that word might be.
Rudy, never the world's best sleeper to start with, has started waking even more frequently during the night and it's killing me. He just wants to feed all night, or rather, remain attached to my boobs all night, he doesn't actually necessarily want to feed some of the time, i think he just likes to know they're there. I have been going to bed later in the evenings because i discovered that no matter what time i go to bed, he wakes up as soon as i am in there, so it only prolongs the agony, i may as well stay up and enjoy having some time to myself/with Chris because an "early night" just means the nocturnal wakings start even earlier and i have to spend a few extra hours in a weird sleepy half-awake state contorted into some uncomfortable position waiting for my son to decide i can have my own body parts back.
Yes, i'm getting fed up of breastfeeding- can't you tell?!
I didn't get to this stage with Toby until much much later, so it's been a surprise to me the strength of my feelings this past week or so. On Saturday night i went to bed at midnight (i was engrossed reading my Kindle) and Rudy woke up as soon as i went in the bedroom and spent the next 2 hours latched on, just doing little fluttery sucks now and again but protesting whenever i tried to roll away. In the end. at 2am, when i felt physically sick from tiredness and feeling totally touched out, i unlatched him and unceremoniously plopped him back into his crib and rolled to the farthest side of the bed away from him and tried to ignore his squeaky protestations. It did not work. I had to scoop him back out, feed him some more and then once he was properly asleep shift him back again.
Clearly something needs to change, i'm just not sure what (or how). I have a copy of the "No Cry Sleep Solution" which i bought when Toby was coming up to a year old. I remember briefly reading it and one of the first things it says is "Are your child's sleeping habits actually a problem, or is it just other people/society as a whole making you feel that way? Do you really WANT things to change?" and reflecting and thinking "Nah actually- it's not so bad" I think at that point Toby was sleeping a 6 hour stretch in the evenings though in a cot in his own room, and then just coming in with us during the early hours of the morning and feeding a couple of times. So looking back i can see why i felt like i didn't really need a change to happen, it was just other people saying "He's almost a year old and still feeding during the night?!" that had prompted me to buy the book i suppose.
Today when i read the same paragraph though i was like "Yes! I am exhausted, resentful, DYING! Give me the answers!" So as a first step, mostly to help me feel like i am actually doing something, i have started keeping a "Rudy Sleep Log" as of today, so i can see how bad things actually are, before deciding what to do about it.
Toby is sleeping great at the minute, we haven't had any random night-wakings for a few weeks now. He is still getting up at the actual crack of dawn though which is rough going after the nonsense nights with Rudy. He is a bit of an emotional wreck at times, breaking down over the slightest of things but he seems to have come out of the other side of his weird picky-ness with food that we had going on for a few weeks and is back to gobbling everything up.
We had a nice week last week, and i have some lovely pictures to share but i'm not sure i have the energy to write about it all just now so might have to save that for another time.
In the meantime here's a snapshot of a rare scene ;)
I would like to say "this too shall pass" but at 10months I'm still stumbling round like a zombie. The children take it in turns to wake at 6am. Nyah swings between waking hourly in the evening and then sleep through from midnightish, to sleeping through until 1am ish and then either feeding for 2hours (while I sit naked and shivering in the nursery on the rocking chair trying to decide whether to just take her back to bed with me) or just waking 10mins after I put her down from a feed, for the rest of the night until I bring her in with me. I hope it is just a phase with Rudy, but even if it is, a new one will replace it, but then I guess it keeps things interesting.
ReplyDeleteGawd that's all hideously negative, I just mean, don't go throwing some awful routine at you both because as soon as you've got a plan and a method, he'll change what he's doing to something else anyway. Maybe it's a growth spurt, or teeth, or just madness?
I'm going to leave you alone now. I'm not helping. This will be you in a few months time, blathering and talking nonsense, sleep just a distant distant memory....