Sunday, April 15, 2007

The Sorrows of Sleep Revisited

Wren is sleeping badly, again.

...

I thought of ending the post there but the temptation to vent about it is too great. His current sleeping habit looks like this:

9pm - nurse to sleep.
9.45pm - wake screaming to tell me to nurse him to sleep again. If we misunderstand and try and rock him to sleep or soothe him in some other way he has to shout louder and get in a frightful frenzy to intimidate his parents.
2am - Wake fretful. Cough. Escalate to screaming if I don't nurse him soon. Cough.
5am - ditto
6am - ditto
6.30am - ditto
7.30am awake and cooing to himself.
9-9.45am nap in crib
noon - 12.45pm nap wherever (crib, car, sling, lap)
3-3.45pm nap wherever
5.30-6.15 nap crib

If he is in the car he sleeps longer. If he is in my lap he sleeps longer. If he is in the crib it is 45 minutes clockwork.

While he screams in the dark of an evening Josh asks "do you want me to get him?" and I am just incoherent because I don't want anyone to have to get him. I want one hour of awake baby-sleeping time. Tonight Josh managed to get him back to sleep pretty quickly so I don't have breastfeeding resentment :
[Definition: "breastfeeding resentment" this is the sensation by the breastfeeding mother that she doesn't WANT to nurse her baby any more at all thankyou because it is really a vampiric barnacle that should have been gestated by an elephant to keep it in another 9 months till it was civilized and independent and could eat foliage and sleep suspended in the trees. If we descended from the apes what happened to that ability? Huh? Tell me THAT! This is not something that you talk about if you are into attachment parenting and extended breastfeeding. It doesn't mean I want to give him formula I just don't want to nurse him right now or now or now.]


.... but I am still wary of him - like an antelope who sniffs a lion somewhere. Our bedroom is the thicket in which a small predator is lying.

3 comments:

Wyndi said...

Have you called the peditrion about his sleep changes and cardiology?

Shannon said...

No, dr lewin pretty much said his sleep wasn'y anything to do with his heart. I think it was the head cold and mastitis (me nursing alot) that changed his schedule).

He is pretty happy most of the time.

Anonymous said...

Shannon, bummer. Also, you are extra funny when sleep deprived, keep up the good work ;)

Jane, Ramona's mom.