Left Coast Mama » teething

Guilty and Sleep Deprived . . . Again

Gwen — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 06:08:06 +0000

I sometimes wonder if I have offended the sleep gods/goddesses somehow. I love both my children but the night wakings and early morning wakings are starting to really take their toll.

I envy my husband his ability to go back to sleep in an instant, but I think if we actually had the room he would be sleeping in a different room until the sleep train comes back into our house. Then I might not feel so guilty about having him take the boys from about 5:30 am until he leaves for work. The last couple of nights/days there was no way I was going to be able to cope with the day if I didn’t get that small window of sleep time from 6 to 8.

Last night was a horrible night. I am not sure why, but Quinlan had a bad night and to make matters worse, when I finally got to sleep after the 1:30 ish wake up, I woke with sinus problems folled by a horrific case of insomnia. There is nothing like not being able to get to sleep when you know at least one of your children will be waking soon. I figure I got about around 3 and a half hours sleep all told last night. Let me just say it is not enough.

At least I know I am not the only one who is the walking dead lately.

First Sunday in Advent

Gwen — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 03:48:48 +0000

Today is the beginning of the church year. Today is the beginning of Advent. Today is the beginning of the countdown to Christmas. Today is the day I took two children to church by myself. Today is the day Quinlan was a very cranky boy. Boy was today a day.

I did however get a few things finished, but not one of them was getting the Christmas decorations from on top of the storage unit. Which is too bad because this means that my advent wreath is still in the tub on top of our storage unit. I was planning to have a real family advent and light the first candle and sing O Come, O Come Emmanuel.

The biggest thing I managed to finish while Anthony held Quinlan out of the way, was to sew some buttons on the inside of Aidan’s duvet and some elastic loops on the inside of the cover. I hope it now actually stays put where it is supposed to and doesn’t become a garbled lump. Oh and I managed to corner one of the men in the choir who missed Saturday’s rehearsal. I made sure his wife and one of his sons also knew when he was supposed to be at choir this week. I am hoping this helps.

At least I accomplished something and gave Anthony a bit of alone time.

Where is a Sleep Guru When You Need One?

Gwen — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 03:54:06 +0000

When my now 10 month old was only 2 months old he slept like nobody’s business. He would go to sleep around 11 pm and not wake until 5 am, nurse for a bit and go back to sleep for another few hours. I still like between 8 and 9 hours of solid sleep myself, but it was doable. Then somewhere between 5 and 6 months Quinlan decided (well at least his body decided) that it was time to actually start pushing out some teeth. They take forever and come in 1 at a time. They must also hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. At least this is my inference because of the waking and general crankiness. Just so you know, the waking happens between every 1.5 to 3 hours. Quinlan usually gets his biggest chunk of sleep from 7:30 pm till somewhere between 11 pm to 2 am. Unfortunately I hardly get to sleep before 11 pm at the earliest. It is usually closer to 11:30 or midnight.

Quinlan is still not much of a napper unless he is attached to the breast, in the stroller (moving), in the car (also moving) or lying on my lap on the nursing pillow. This is not a good thing either. About the only good thing I took away from the Weissbluth book was figuring out your child’s tiredness signals. At least with this Quinlan shows them much better than Aidan ever did. These signals are what told us that Quinlan needs to be going down to bed at around 6:45-7:00 pm. If we push the time it is harder to get him to nurse to sleep, though Anthony can usually lie down with him and get him over the edge to sleep.

The Good Old Sleeping Days

So with Quinlan waking so many time during the night now Anthony and I are incredibly sleep deprived. I have a hard time getting back to sleep especially if I get up to soothe, feed and generally move Quinlan back to sleep in his crib. I will do this for the first session but after a while Quinlan ends up in the bed with us. Neither Anthony or I sleep well with Quinlan in the bed. He doesn’t sleep for longer periods, we just don’t need to have the extra step of going into the boys’ room to get him. He has started shunning the soother (in the wee hours) and will cry when Anthony tries to soothe him. I am at my wit’s end.

Before we get any comments about this, we don’t want to keep co-sleeping and we have no intention of ever trying Cry It Out ever again. It was horrific for everyone when we tried it the Weissbluth way and didn’t work except to make it that much harder to get Aidan to sleep at all. We will not try it for Quinlan and because we need to have the boys share a room it isn’t something that is at all practical either.

I will be checking out a number of sleep books from the library and some twitter friends have promised to lend me some as well. Watch the blog for updates and reviews of the sleep books and training methods. Maybe there is something we can do with the child who stands up the nanosecond he stirs.

© 2009 Left Coast Mama | Permalink | 4 comments
Related: Bed Time, My Boys, parenting mistakes, Quinlan, sleep, teething.

Teething Again

Gwen — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 00:08:00 +0000

Aidan never does anything half assed. He is teething again. This time it is two molars and an eye-tooth. All. At. The same time! This doesn’t make for a restful weekend.

Friday night I was sure that Aidan would be asleep in no time because he was tired, a little bit frantic and he got up before 7 that morning. This usually means that he goes down really easily. Not this night. I am pretty sure that he woke himself at least three times before midnight. This was when we decided that tylenol, and some dimetap for the stuffy nose might be in order. While it may be really easy to give Aidan medicine when he is awake, when he is tired and has woken himself up a few time it is a disaster in the making. Aidan still had a hard time sleeping. It was about this time that we figured out how many teeth he was trying to get out at once. He woke another few times during the night and we were all exhausted on Saturday morning. About 10 am we refound the oragel. Aidan was quiet for a full hour. Sigh, why didn’t we remember it the night before?

Saturday we spent mostly looking for glasses for me. It is always difficult and the pair that I like best is $529 just for the frames. Most of the hip glasses are not for my face at all. They make it look rounder than it should and really much older than I want to look. I think I have a couple that might work but we couldn’t keep going with Aidan because he was very quickly becoming “Tantrum Boy.”

On Sunday we got up later than the day before and didn’t do too much. Well Anthony cleaned out the filing cabinet, shredded three garbage bags full of paper and file all the bills and other paper that was hanging around the front table and computer desk. Oh we also got our new camera. Anthony found a nice camera very much on sale and got it to replace our small digital camera that was lost/stolen from our luggage at Christmas-time. So I had a chance to play with it a little bit. I will be posting some pictures a little later. I am also planning to take some pictures of me in some frames. Maybe I can get some comments on which pair to get.

Anyway, after playing at the park, eating supper and a bath Aidan was very tired and went to sleep without a fuss. Keep you fingers crossed for a good night.

Tags: Teething, Sleep, Glasses, Camera