I'm tired. I know I say that a lot, but thats only because IT'S SO TRUE. I'm really really REALLY tired.
For a couple reasons: first up, I've been reading a lot, and even though I promise myself I will stop reading at a decent hour, I always end up...indecent. I mean, I've been staying up until midnight like the last three nights, reading. I know its stupid, but by golly, it is the ONLY time its quiet around here and I want some freaking peace.
The midnight thing wouldn't be such a big deal if once I finally went to bed I could actually sleep, but noooooo. There's the second problem: I have children. This causes me much more of a problem than just lack of sleep, but we're only talking about this one for today. Every once in awhile my two year old wakes up and screams, or has a bad dream or whatever; so every few nights he wakes me up and I have to go in and figure out how to get him back to sleep OR I get to change all his sheets because he peed the bed OR I get to lay in bed and hear him scream for me if my husband tries to go in there so I end up getting up anyway. Then I also have a baby. A baby who will NOT take a pacifier. Who when you try to give him a pacifier gets very ANGRY. Who thinks that his MOMMY should be his pacifier. I HATE THIS. He sleeps alright the first half of the night (you know the half that I wasted reading) but the second half he wakes up all night and screams and wants me to feed him, but he wants to just keep going and going and it doesn't matter how long I've nursed him, he will SCREAM a lot once I cut him off. And then he'll be back at it an hour later. It makes me not like him very much.
Sometimes my husband snores, or pulls the blankets off me or talks in his sleep.
Also, we have stupid loud neighbors.
Combine all these things together and you get my nights: Nights where I am woken up approximately 53 times and I'm ready to kill someone--or myself--at any given moment. Its so lovely.
I am so at my wits end I'm ready to do something desperate, I don't know what that would be, just SOMETHING...thats desperate. Because I'm feeling desperate. And tired. And like someone punched me in the forehead and between the eyes. And I don't want to hear the comments that say this will never get better, because I can handle getting up every once in awhile, I can handle listening for teenagers to get home, I can handle my husband talking in his sleep (this one I quite enjoy actually). What I can't handle is screaming baby in my ear, seventeen times in four hours. Maybe I just need some ear plugs...what do you think?
O come to the bowling alley and let us ADORE him
13 hours ago
I think you need to start taking drugs.
ReplyDeleteMelatonin. 100% natural and even your little guy with night terrors can take it with a dropper to ease him back into sleep. Take it at 10pm and PROMISE yourself you'll finish reading by 11:00 so that you can get a decent night's sleep.
ReplyDeleteAnd earplugs are a GENIUS idea. Whatever it takes!
Neither of my boys would take pacifiers either. Trayser wouldn't even let Brian hold him until he was year old... it was ALL me! And he had some lungs on him. So I can totally relate. I remember being so tired too. Thank heavens they grow up. I remember some nights where I literally hated that child. Ok... not HIM, just that he was awake. Again.
ReplyDeleteHave you tried feeding him something filling like cereal or something right before he goes to bed? Do you think he really is hungry or do you think he's just in a routine of waking up? Just some thoughts... But since he is your 4th, I'm sure you've already done the food thing... Or maybe you should feed him cereal when he wakes up in the middle of the night before you nurse him...? I don't know.
I would also say you could just hire a wetnurse for the nighttime... but... that would just be icky wouldn't it?
I'm all for the earplugs. I am a mean mom like that. I would stick in the earplugs, turn on the white noise machine and let him cry.
ReplyDeleteCause if he's not hungry, then well, I'm just mean like that.
Been there, done that.
ReplyDeleteIt WILL get better. The baby will grow up and sleep through the night, and then, when he is a teenager, you may seek your sleep deprived revenge by making him get his sleepy self out of bed early in the morning to go to school ( insert evil laugh) perhaps you could record him screaming now, and use that as his wake up alarm then?
None of our 4 children would take a pacifier. (besides me)
Hang in there.
My three-year-old gets night terrors so we deal with his middle of the night screaming a few times a week. You have my sympathy. Also, maybe consider switching the baby back and forth between boob and bottle. She's one and almost weaned anyway, but she's been going back and forth no problem for six months. It helps on those nights where I CANNOT deal with being awake.
ReplyDeleteI have no great advice. Just good luck. And I have totally done the late night reading thing. Or often it is a tv show or movie I recorded and I want to watch in peace. The whole time I think, "Go to bed. Go to bed. It's not like the day is going to start any later tomorrow just because you went to bed late. Go to bed." But I don't.
ReplyDeleteI think it's safe to say that I'm a strong woman. That I have endured a lot. That I am brave. However,it takes just a few nights of baby waking up more than once to reduce me to a gibbering heap of highly strung nerves. I just can't take it. Ugh.
ReplyDelete