Yea, though I stagger thru the Valley of Sleep Depravation....

....I shall fear no evil because this is a pretty traumatic way to live.

Why do I punish myself by trying to "break habits" of a 5 month old (almost)?

Let me make one thing very clear. My son is NOT a "cry it out" kind of guy. Any attempt at doing this results in a derailed day & often night. He is a child that requires a calm mommy and a relaxed schedule. Different children require different strategies and so do their parents. One more thing I should make clear....I am not "hard-core" and I am fine with that. If I want to wear myself into a puddle meeting my child's needs, that is my choice. However, bowing to the advice of other parents and my DH criticism, I decided to make a concerted effort to get a regular sleep schedule going.

This is the third day (and night) I have spent watching the clock and enforcing a sleep routine. Kane seemed overtired to me, so I began to nap him after every two hours of awake time. Yes, I have been successful in getting HIM more sleep. No, this schedule does not give me more "freedom" for myself because I am constantly either feeding him, trying to exercise him, soothing him when he wakes up screaming or putting him down for his next nap.

So all of this preface leads me to regale you with the events from last night's disaster of a sleep routine. Kane obviously sensed that I was trying to box him into a schedule and managed to subvert all of my efforts. Following my 2 hour rule, he was due for bedtime at 7:30. He decided to have a leisurely meal instead, which I adapted to because full tummy equals more sleep, right? RIGHT? Nope, it actually means more energy for the tyke to defy you with.

I put him in the co-sleeper/crib/blanket storage at 8pm. He went along with it good-naturedly and laid in his crib talking in his pterodactyl voice to the dimmed light fixture. Mind you, this is not an "inside" voice, per se, but rather more of a primitive scream/yell monologue. Kyle was getting rather fed up with this situation since he was trying to go to sleep (I am so sure he was trying so hard.....*rolls eyes*). After letting this "self-soothing" go on for 30 min, I went in to try and speed up the process. (In fairness, he could have continued that squawking for hours and Kyle did have to go to school in the morning.) Low and behold, the child was so happy to see me that he threw a complete hissy fit.

I pulled myself up by my pajama bottoms and patted his bum for a min or so (to NO avail) and then left the room to set a timer. I proceeded to wait 1 min, then re-enter to comfort (which made no impact on the volume) and then to set the timer for 2 mins, and re-enter to comfort (again, with laughable results). So we did this....each time I waited another minute longer and then would ease into the room to offer comfort....FOR AN HOUR WITH NO DETECTABLE CHANGE! My husband grew so annoyed, he finally went in and picked him up and walked him to sleep. (Now who's breaking the rules, huh??)

Finally, blessed silence! Now my DH and I got to do what we had been planning for days! Yes...that's right....THE BUDGET! :) However, no sooner than we had gotten through half of it, than Kane resurfaced greatly refreshed from his little siesta. This was about the point where I decided....FINE! BE AWAKE THEN! And so Kane partied until around 11pm.

The night past in a blur of feedings and fussing (6 times that I counted between midnight and 7am) and I finally got out of bed to feed him around 4:30. My plan was to stay awake enough to get a complete feeding in so he would sleep and leave me ALONE. As I sat in the living room rocking my nursing infant, I heard a loud crash from the bedroom. Thinking Kyle had fallen out of bed, I called Michael to check on him. My sheepish husband appeared in the room to tell me that he had wrestled with the nightstand and lost by a roundhouse punch to the side of his head. Apparently, all of the nighttime wakings are making my husband have dreams that he is wrestling with people. In retrospect, it was fortuitous that I got up to nurse at that point.

And so, we had an eventful night.....which has led me to deal with a baby who laughs in the face of my stupid 2 hour idea today. I think I'll go eat worms.