Sleeping

I live in London.  But basically I am just a mom trying my best to raise healthy, well-adjusted kids on minimal sleep.  It's a tough job.  Especially when I'm completely exhausted... which is how I've been for the past 5 months.  Honestly, it has been rough since Violet has been born.  Posterior delivery, tongue tie, severe double mastitis, tongue tie snip, recurrent mastitis, international travel, recurrent tongue tie, second tongue tie snip, Mark traveling to Chicago, 5 months of way too little sleep.

I have to stop myself now to say how thankful I am to have two healthy girls.  A tongue tie is NOTHING on the scheme of things.  It doesn't necessarily feel that way when it feels like someone is stabbing you through the nipple with a hot knife every time you feed your baby though.  Lack of sleep does have a way of making everything seem a lot worse and less manageable than it really is.

This week Mark is in Chicago again.  Last time he was there I was waking Violet up every 3 hours to feed her so that her tongue tie wouldn't reattach.  This time I am training her to sleep through the night again.  It didn't start that way though.  It started with me sobbing for hours because she wouldn't sleep.  Calling my mom sobbing because I was at my wits end.  Snapping at her because she suggested that rocking Violet to sleep every single time she woke up in the night maybe wasn't a good habit.  Turns out she was right.  Yesterday I began a sleep training program where I sit next to her bed and let her lay there and soothe herself.  I can reassure her, pat her back, talk to her and occasionally pick her up if I think it will help, but ultimately I'm teaching her how to put herself back to sleep.  I was really skeptical.  I didn't want to abandon my sweet 5 month old baby when she needed me, so I didn't.  I stayed right there until she fell asleep.  And she did!  After 30 minutes.  She woke up briefly at 9:30 last night and then slept until... wait for it... 4 a.m.  Unbelievable.  I am so excited I can barely stand it.  Now I'm just optimistic enough about the future to not be a wreck.  I'm still tired, but I can handle it if I know that it doesn't have to be like this for the rest of my entire life!

I'm not good when I'm tired.  I'm not sure that anyone is really good, but I'm terrible.  I'm an impatient, frustrated and snappy mom.  I'm weepy and melodramatic and pessimistic and constantly overwhelmed. But I don't have to be this way for long.  Now I can be stable and functioning and patient.

Hooray for hope!  Hooray for sleep!



PS. We're planning a trip to Ireland in the next few weeks.  There will be some more fun travel-y types of posts at that point.