My absence explained

Again, months pass with no posts.  I have been struggling lately with how "real"  I want my blog to be.  Do I want it to be all banana bread recipes and baby pictures, or do I want it to reflect how my life is really going at a moment in time.  A blog that I feel deals with real issues is Dooce  She has never been shy about sharing her problems with depression and her marriage.  I have always been an open and honest person, so why would my blog be any different?

So if I'm going to be real....the past few months of my life have been a struggle.  Struggle is too light of a word.  Never ending fog of despair and exhaustion is more accurate.  Luke was not sleeping at all.  AT ALL.   I know some parents say their child doesn't sleep when their child is waking 2-3 times a night.  I want to punch those parents in the face. 

On his worst nights, Luke was waking up 12-13 times a night.  My nights were a complete hell.  And my days were not much better because I felt so terrible from not sleeping.  Luke was grouchy from not getting enough rest, and I struggled to make it through each day knowing that I did not even have the sweet release of slumber to look forward to at night.  There were days when I was afraid to drive because of my sheer exhaustion.  I started to resent Luke and did not even want to play with him.  I would put him down at night and then stare at the video monitor in dread, knowing that I had 2 hours until he woke, if I was lucky.   I started to wonder if it was even worth the bother of trying to go to sleep, knowing it would be that much harder to get up when Luke woke up in 30, 45 or sometimes 15 minutes. 

On top of this, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with stage 4 liver cancer and my husband was making frequent trips to Florida to see her and then make all the arrangements once she passed.  So no sleep coupled with worry and grief and no help taking care of the baby from my husband.

I was desperate.  I knew that things were bad when I was googling "baby sleep drugs" at 3 am. Everyone I talked to said I needed to just let him cry it out, that he would learn to put him self back to sleep.  I tried it and it was heartbreaking.  I thought, "I am his mother, I am supposed to be meeting all of my child's needs.  Am I really meeting his needs right now?" as Luke screamed for an hour. 

So what was the problem?  From about 3 months to 6 months, Luke was growing incredibly rapidly.  Seriously, he jumped like 3 levels on his growth chart and was in the 93rd percentile.  This baby was once in the 7th percentile!  I talked to his pediatrician and he agreed with me that at first he simply needed to eat to sustain his rapid growth and now did not know how to put himself back to sleep without nursing. 

I decided to order Elizabeth Pantley's "No Cry Sleep Solution" and see if it had any suggestions that I had not already found on Dr. Google .  The reviews were good, so I decided to give it a shot. 

Things have been slow, and we have had a few bad nights, but Luke only woke up twice last night.  I feel like a functional human being again.  Everyone in the house is much happier. The two things that have helped the most are letting him learn to fall asleep without nursing, and putting him down when he is not fully asleep.  I highly recommend this book to anyone with a non-sleeping baby. 

So as I finish up this post, Luke is napping upstairs in his crib.  A nap that has lasted an hour and a half so far.  (He never napped longer than 45 minutes before.)  My life is brighter and I am having so much fun playing with my little man.   I look forward to nighttime now, where before I dreaded it to the point of tears.  And I hope to be posting frequently now that I have some energy (and time during naps!).