Things Aren't So Good

Things have gotten really tough around here. D. has gotten more fussy and unpredictable with his sleep. I'll have 2 or 3 decent nights of sleep with decent meaning getting up twice a night but D. going back to sleep relatively quickly. Then I'll have a nightmare of a night like last night. He got up to eat at 12:45 but then wouldn't go back to sleep until 3:20. Not going back to sleep means I'm pacing the bedroom with him in a sling, practically falling asleep on my feet and knowing that I'm once again doing damage to my nether region. Finally at 3:20, he fell asleep enough that I could lie on the bed and pass out with him on me until 4:15 when I woke up with my body all contorted and placed him carefully in the crib next to me. I dropped back in bed exhausted and slept all of 45 minutes when he woke up to eat at 5:00. Thank God today was Saturday so I didn't have to get up with an alarm so after I finished feeding him and he fell asleep quickly, we slept from 5:45 to 8:00. But I am exhausted. Totally.

Right now, it's after 7pm and D. is upstairs screaming bloody murder. He should have fallen asleep at 4:30 but we got home from linner a little late and I didn't finish feeding him til 5:30. I knew this was probably not going to be good but V. keeps saying that if he stays up longer, he'll sleep longer. I know this not to be true. But we are trying to keep up the linner tradition and I thought it would be okay. I guess not because after I fed him, he fell asleep until I put him down. Then he immediately woke up. So V. got him and tried to put him to sleep to no avail which left me having to put him in the sling and walk around with him until he fell asleep again. I let him sleep for a little while to get through a sleep cycle but then when I put him down he woke up immediately and started crying. Thus, he's upstairs screaming.

I'm exhausted, my anxiety level is sky high because I feel like it's all up to me and if I can't do it, he doesn't sleep and this wicked cycle starts. I am stressed going to bed every night not knowing if I'm going to be up all night pacing torturously. There aren't many worse things for a new mom than feeding your kid and then watching the time to the next feeding ticking away as your baby screams and requires you to be up pacing. I feel like I'm losing my mind with this unpredictability of not knowing if I'm going to have 2 minutes to myself or 2 hours. I feel like as soon as I get him down, I'm anxiously holding my breath for him to be up crying AGAIN.

To add to it, and this may be TMI, I finally stopped bleeding for the past 2 days. Until this afternoon and it started again as well as some of the pain. Big surprise there.

So why don't I have V. help? Well, he can't do the feeding since I'm still trying to make sure I keep my milk production up. V. can't help during the night because he's up at 2:30 to start his 16 hour work day. V. is upstairs right now and D. has stopped crying so I assume he is rocking him in the rocking chair. The thing is that it's almost time to feed him again and there really hasn't been any time to myself. That is, relaxing, anxiety-free time to myself. This is exactly how it was with I. too and brings back the memory of sobbing down in the laundry room because it was the farthest place I could get from her without leaving the house.

I felt like I was a really good mom to one kid. I really don't feel like a good mom to two right now. Sometimes I can pull off the juggling routine but it's so hit and miss that even when it works decently, I feel like I should just chalk it up to luck, sheer dumb luck.

I am just hoping against hope that he sleeps longer tonight and that I'm not up all night because I will literally be a loon tomorrow. I pray every night and throughout the night that D. will go to sleep. Some nights it happens and obviously some nights it doesn't. I pray for all of our mental health sake's that it happens tonight.