May 30, 2006 - 11:21 PM.

Horrible sleep week OVAH

The last month has been very taxing, as one sees when looking at the last update. Several teeth have come slowly and agonizingly in -- now 16 in total. And there were perhaps two full WEEKS of awful terrible sleep - wakings at 1, 2, 4, and 6 many nights until I was just at my wit's end last Friday.

Of course it was all traceable, but not all fixable all at once. In addition to teething, for example, the little punkin has been:

* trying to shift to one nap a day

* learning signs like crazy

* adjusting to our rapid ascent into summer light (it's not dark until 10, already)

* removing his morning nursing session (his idea, not mine)

*trying to cut out purees (again, his idea) plus adjusting to toddler lesser appetite, AND

* preferring Daddy to Mimi, for nighttime especially.

Those last 2 have meant that he thinks he doesn't want to eat, but then ends up very hungry. He, who was always excited to sit in his high chair for deliciousness, now resists it with all his mighty might, and we have to just let him eat when he'll agree to it. But of course this may leave him going to bed unwittingly hungry, so he'd wake up shrieking and crying -- but so hysterical, and so toothy, that he couldn't calm down enough to eat right away! Eventually we'd be able to calm him by going out to the magical Garage, where he'd sit on the dryer, snuffling and eating an egg or some fruited yogurt -- but ONLY with Daddy there too, so J's sleep has been as interrupted as mine lately. He would also resist his former friends Hyland's and Tylenol, so we'd end up having to force both upon him and end up with a re-hystericked baby until the things finally took effect.

But the last 2 nights have involved no wakeups at all, and he ate an egg just moments before bedtime tonight, so I remain hopeful. At least he is still in our room so it is a simple thing to just plop him in our bed for a few minutes if he does wake up (normal wake-up, not hysteria). He is so comforted by our presence, and so young yet -- I never have understood that mean advice people give about not letting your children "get into the bad habit" of coming into bed with you. I have company in bed; why shouldn't he? Why ought I to deny him comfort, and feel awful doing it? I'm not going down that fear-based route. Being nice to my kid, especially when he's suffering, is a luxury I am going to afford us both. Childhood mothering is too short to listen to those meanies who say, "What kind of person will he turn out to be, if you give him what he asks for?!" Dick piercings, every one of them.

He has also abruptly switched from Mimi to Mommy. My heart breaks, but he is so proud.

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