Fancy Pantsy

I remembered my last point around midnight:

I am exhausted because Charlotte is trying to kill me.  She wakes 2-3 times a night every night, and at least one of them (usually the early morning one) will not go to back to sleep for an hour or more…so she is often waking at 5-5:30, and falling back asleep just when I have to get ready for work. So my day is starting at 5-5:30—and that is after already being up with her at around midnight…and sometimes another time in there. I am averaging 4 hours of broken sleep a night here. And am back at work. No naps.

I am really not sure what to do. She still falls asleep nursing, and I really don’t want to change it, because it works. But, I know she  has gotten dependent on it. If I or the man go in and try to rock or pat her to sleep, she freaks out. She needs to be nursed back to sleep. I am so lazy to try and change the nursing to sleep association, but I know we have to. I am trying the No Cry Sleep Solution techniques which have worked in the past when Charlotte’s sleep has gone off track (she slept through the night consistently from 3-7 months of age, and has been on and off-more off than on- ever since), but no longer are. I wont CIO. I know there is a lot of debate about it and by this age most people feel like it is fine…but I absolutely cannot and will not leave her crying alone in her crib for 5 minutes or 5 hours. I just cannot. Maybe it is not “wrong” to do it, but I cannot do it.

We are discussing me nursing her almost to sleep, and then having DH put her to sleep and back to sleep until she learns to do it without nursing, I am sure she’ll cry but at least it will be in his arms.

She was sleeping through the night at least a couple nights a week for months (after doing it almost every night from 2-7 months of age) but it has probably been 3-4 weeks since she has even given me one night. There have been a (very) few nights where she has slept from bedtime (8ish) until 3-4am, and that is as good as it gets right now.

I am really at the end of the rope here. I cannot believe I am now back at work with a 1 year old who is waking 2-3 times a night. It is just awful, and will be worse once I realy get back into my work, and am on the road several hundred kilometers a few times a week. I need to sleep. Right now, I am resorting to drinking way too much coffee to stay awake, which makes me queasy and irritable and gives me headaches…but I cannot function on so little sleep without a coffee by my side at all times.

Any ideas? Suggestions? Encouragement? Commiseration? (No CIO comments or endorsement please. I am sick of this debate, will simply delete anything remotely suggesting it. That is, as I stated above, not to say it is “wrong”, but I am not doing it and am too tired and raw to engage in a debate about it).

Sorry guys, I have been a bit busy, what with being a working mom again and all. Here are some random points, in no particular order:

1) My new office is about 30-40 minutes away. That is annoying after working 5 minutes away for 8 years.

2) I am pretty eager to leave for work in the morning. My kids are not exactly pleasant in the morning, to be honest. Especially “the girl who will not get herself ready for school until she is screamed at asked a bit sternly no matter how many times she is asked nicely”.

3) By mid-morning, I am missing my baby. Not so much the girl, only because I am used to spending a lot of time away from her. I do miss being home when she gets home from school though…that was nice.

4) Things seem to be going well with the nanny. I actually want to leave my man and marry her (but maybe have an affair with him??) so I can stop paying her…she is a better wife than I ever was, and I feel like I need a wife more than I need a husband. Yesterday, dinner was ready when I came home. It was so nice, and then I had the bitter realization that it is always like that for the man!

5) I have lost about 10lbs now since early November, and 2-3 inches from my chest, waist and hips. That’s good, right? About 15 more to go.

6) I am hungry.

7) Right now the girl is having a screaming fit, and I am ignoring it.

8) Now the baby is crying because the girl is crying. I am still ignoring. It is the man’s problem.

9) This is getting annoying…I guess I better go do…something.