Tragedy

I teared up several times yesterday watching the news about the terrible school shooting in Connecticut.  I have found that becoming a parent has made me so much more emotional.  I cried at church two weeks ago when they made the announcement about donating toys, because I couldn't bear the thought of a child having a toy less Christmas. 
I simply cannot imagine the pain the parents of those children are going through.  Last night, my husband and I played with our baby after his bath, and I thought, "Those parents had this too".  They had sleepless nights, poopy diapers, temper tantrums, and now they will never experience those things with their babies again. 
I hope that productive conversations about mental illness and gun laws take place after this tragedy.  No parent should ever have to endure this, and it keeps happening over and over, with increasing frequency in America. 

We have had a couple of rough nights here.  Not sure what I am doing differently, but the baby has been sleeping horribly. 

My husband and I are big fans of "The Walking Dead".  Since Luke was born, we have rarely watched it on Sunday nights because I
1.  cannot stay up that late
2.  cannot easily fall asleep after being incredibly tense for an hour

This week's episode was especially brutal.  SPOILER!  I had to leave the room during the c-section scene.  I could not handle the gore.  I was so afraid that something was going to be wrong with the baby.  It's funny how becoming a mom changes your reactions to things in movies and TV.  Rick's grief was so gut-wrenching, I started tearing up myself.  This season is definitely an improvement over last season's boring farm and Sophia search. 

So true

This article fully explains how I felt tonight when I heard this news story.  I turned to my husband and said "This puts our screamy night into new perspective".

The Moment You Become a Parent, You Inherit a Ticker Tape of Fear

Hurricane Preparedness

We have a hurricane headed our way in the next few days and the #1 thing I am most worried about?  What to do about my cloth diapers if we lose power.   I really, really hope we don't lose electricity because I am not keen on hand washing, but I don't want to use disposables either!  Stuck between a rock and a hard place!  I am keeping my fingers crossed that the storm has weakened by the time it gets to us. 

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!).

Happy World Breastfeeding Week!

This Saturday, Lukey and I will be participating in The Big Latch On at the Annapolis Mall.  I am really excited for the event, or as Scott calls it, the "boob circle".  I am very happy to have made it 4 months breastfeeding and I hope that we can continue for about a year.  Here is a link to the event's website so you can search for a location near you.

All rolls courtesy of breastfeeding!


Big Latch On 

 http://worldbreastfeedingweek.org/

Settling in

We are slowly getting settled into our new home and routine.  Luke and I go to baby reading class at the library on Mondays and a breastfeeding group on Wednesdays.  I am thinking of joining a stay-at-home-mom group that has several meeting per month.  Most of the activities are for kids that are a little older than Luke though, so we might wait on that.  Sleep continues to be elusive and the day where Luke sleeps through the night cannot come fast enough.  A friend told us last night that he didn't sleep till he was four and that gave me nightmares.