The Good. First off, I have been exercising and eating healthy lately, and feel much better than I have in a long time! I am finally losing a little weight... just a little, but baby steps, right? Secondly, yesterday was a great day! I woke up and headed to our apartment complex's fitness center while Dave and Bruce were still sleeping. At 10:15 Bruce and I went to the Library for 'Baby Time'. (The librarian leads some baby songs, reads a book to the group and the babies get to play with balls and blocks - all under 18 months or so...) He was SOOO happy. I mean, jumping up and down, squealing and screaming, grinning and drooling the WHOLE time as happy as I've ever seen him. He was pretty much the star of Baby-time. The rest of the day went really well. Nap, pool, listened to music, read books... I really felt fulfilled as a mother yesterday. Also I have a new calling, as YW 1st counselor, and last night was my first time at mutual. It was a really good mother-daughter activity. I was nervous for Bruce and Dave home alone, but other than coming home to a house that was -shall we say- less clean than when I left, they had a decent time.
The Bad. Hm. well, to save everyone (all 3 or so of ya'll) who read this blog from a long boring play-by-play of my - or rather Bruce's- sleep issues, I will just say - my sweet, SWEET boy is 7 1/2 months old and has only ever slept more than a 3 hour time-span a handful of times in his life. It has been bearable mostly b/c he has been sleeping in our bed the last couple of months, so I only partially wake up when he does. I started this week making him fall asleep at night in his crib instead of our bed. Tuesday night after 45 minutes of trying to get him to sleep in his crib the 'kind and gentle way' I left the room and he screamed/cried for 8 minutes, then fell asleep. Breaks my heart to hear him cry, (this was the first time I've ever let him get so upset) but I can only take so much sitting by the crib trying to pat and sing him to sleep. Wednesday night there was no crying. He was soooo tired from waiting up for me to get home from church he nursed and fell right to sleep when I laid him in the crib. At which point, I am going to start the new section...
The Ugly. Boy oh boy, I am PRAYING - please oh please- that my sweet boy is teething. The reason I say this, is if he isn't, I dread the day he is. The last 2 nights Bruce has woke up SCREAMING bloody murder in his crib about 1 hour after going down so easily. Same thing an hour after that, and what felt like 5 times between midnight and 7am. At 2am Tuesday and 4am today I got out popsicles and let him chew on the unopened end, then moved him to bed with us.
He isn't napping well these past few days - maybe two 20 minute naps, and 3 if I am lucky, so he is g-r-u-m-p-y, and seems to switch from unhappy to inconsolable in record time. Today if I went in a different room, or even out of his view he had a break down. Tonight we were at the store and got home after Dave. I was holding Bruce and thought it would be fun to peek at Daddy from around the door - wrong. When Bruce saw David he FREAKED. I mean screaming, crying couldn't catch his breath, clinging to me scared out of his wits. No idea why. After I calmed him down I took him to see Dave again, same thing happened. 3 times. Like I said, rough day.
SO, either by letting him scream/cry himself to sleep on Tuesday I woke the sleeping giant-angry-baby in him, and he is afraid if he can't see his mommy she is gone FOREVER, or I have the WORST timing in the world, and chose to sleep-train the boy right when he is getting his first tooth. Today was rough, and in retrospect, I was not as patient with Bruce as I should have been. To top it all off, I am trying to lose the 15 pounds of baby weight I still have on me and have been dreaming (literally) of Dr. Pepper and Oreos. sigh.
IN CONCLUSION, I just want to say, I love my baby. I love my husband. My "Good"s outweigh the "Bad"s and "Ugly"s 10 times over, but some days are hard and I feel like a Mommy-failure. There. It is off my chest. Tomorrow will be better. I just need to take a deep breath and start over.
Now, to find and eat the Oreos my dear husband brought home and (at my request) hid from me... :)
I read your blog! And I think you're a fantastic mother. I feel like mommy-failure some days too- today in fact. sigh. But you're right the goods outweigh the bads.
ReplyDeleteI so hope Bruce starts sleeping better on his own! That is ROUGH! And that certainly sounds like teething to me. Poor guy!
Hang in there woman! And I wish Tyler and I were the ones playing "Things" with you!!! haha! good times.
these are the posts that you will get comments on, and then you will probably find that more people read your blog than you think.
ReplyDeleteSleep training--ahhh, it's a tricky one. But be confidant in your good judgment as a mom. And stay strong! David can help you do this. I don't know what it is about dad's but crying tends to annoy them more than break their heart. Crying tends to break my heart and Scott is the logical voice that tells me if I go in again I'm just going to make things worse. Bruce is probably is going through withdrawals and is more clingy than usual, but honestly he would be crying with ouchy teeth anyway so it's okay to kill two birds with one stone.
I've never had a baby sleep with me. I wouldn't be able to sleep, and so I don't know how hard it would be to go from my bed to crib. But we just took Mary's pacifier away, and she screamed for about an hour and a half the first night, and then a little less the second. Until days seven when it was only about 10 minutes. Now she doesn't scream at all. And if I went in it only made matters worse. And when putting her down for a nap, boy I'd have to plan on putting her in their early because she'd scream forever.
The thing is if you are really going to put Bruce in a crib in his own room, do it once and do it good. And trust yourself that mom knows best.
Oh and when I get good sleep the weight falls right off.