We have been waging war with our son over sleep for the past four days. Actually, tonight will be night number four. If this is winning I'd hate to be losing. The stats from last night. He went down (I use that term lightly) at 7:50pm and cried until 9:30pm. We check on him in 5, 10 and eventually 15 minute intervals where we are reassuring we love him and it's sleepy time. We tell him we would appreciate it if he was a wee bit quieter because *whisper* "the whole house is sleeping. Shhhhhh." He was soundly sleeping so we thought we might be in good shape. We went to bed a little after 10pm and were out like a, dare I say? light. I woke up in a puddle of drool to him crying and went upstairs. Carrie was out so cold she had the monitor next to her head and didn't even wake up. We are using two versions of fixing our sleep woes, which probably isn't wise. One says we are not allowed to touch him under any circumstances. The other says if he gets up in the middle of the night he's pretty much out of it and you can pick him up to get him back down. Big mistake. I pick up him and rock with him and he goes back out fairly easily. I put him down in the crib. He rolls over grabs his teddy (another part of "winning)" so I think I am golden. I don't even get to the door, and we're talking less than 5 feet before he is standing up wailing away. Choice words uttered and I lay him down patting his back and I'm getting no where. I spend 30 minutes total and give up and take off downstairs. That's when persistent son versus persistent parents dig into their respective trenches for the long haul. This kid has staying power. He stood up the entire time crying until around 3 am. Off and on he was falling asleep - while standing up! Now, there is a little part of me that is extremely proud of that son of mine. I mean talk about manning up. That's a tough little dude up there. It's like slow, painful torture to not go up there and relieve him. I feel awful every second of every minute he's crying when you know if you just scooped him up he would be fine and go right out. It's horrible. I can't believe people can be so nonchalant about it when they tell us, "Oh ya, we just let Jimmy scream his head off for a whole week. We needed the sleep. Sucks to be him! Ha!" Now, I am a first class cynic but this is your kid we're talking about and maybe their kid isn't awesome like mine but my awesomer kid is dying and that is tough sledding for me to deal with. I foresee paying for therapy for my little guy down the road.
Finally, at 3 am he collapsed and hit the mattress. He was standing for over three hours. There must be some sort of endurance award he has earned. He woke up at 5:30. You have got to be kidding me?!? This kid is superman. Geez-WAH-leez! We have my brother in law and his GF coming to town tonight. Hope you brought the ear plugs, because guess what? Your room is next to his. Oh, ya, we are breaking him in so I hope you don't plan on going to bed before 3 and like to rise early, like before 5:30. Oh no? Well, you know when people tell you that you'll never forget this vacation? Well, put it in stone my frined. This is a vacation you'll never forget! We are in way over our heads at this point so there is no turning back. The book tells you to suck it up and no one should have to go through this twice. Guess how long the books says it may take? Umm ya, two stinking weeks! I think if I would've read that part first I would've just moved him into my room permanently. Two weeks? Where are the karma Gods? What did we do to deserve this? How is this kid holding out night after night like this?
So, every night around 7:30 we begin to get a queasy feeling in the pit of our stomachs and start furiously praying that tonight will be the night that Q learns to put himself to sleep and stay asleep. And every night, in one bad turn after another, our ferocious praying falls on deaf ears as we strap ourselves in for another ride on the InsomniaQ Express. It's not pretty, but it is parenting - we think. So welcome brother-in-law to the station that never sleeps. We hope you enjoy the extra awake hours you'll be spending with us.
Off subject but we made our photog's blog as did Lucky. What a Lucky dog... http://www.jasonangeliniphotography.com/blog/?p-7491
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