Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Lots of hugs refinnej. Around the beginning of November I had a mini breakdown and that is when Nate really started helping. I just felt like I had done everything I could and I started feeling like I could not do anything else. Ad I started considering checking myself into the hospital so I could get rest. I figured a psych ward would be better than how I was feeling. A huge thing that helped us, I think, was me letting go of being the sole parent to feed him. Night weaning made such a huge difference and being ok that grey wasn't getting just breastmilk anymore. Knock on wood, but he also seems to be napping better. I used to have to lie next to him the entire time he napped.

Sending tons of good thoughts nnej!

A friend of ours recently did very gentle sleep training with her 1 year old. She made her boobs off limits after 9 and now has been getting a solid 6 hours of sleep a night. Baby wakes up at around 4 am, and they nurse again, but that bit of sleep is enough to have her feel human again. She was where you are not too long ago, feeling like she was on the cusp of a breakdown, and her daughter is doing fine and she feels so much better.

And if you can, table the discussions about moving and just focus on getting happy and healthy.

Big hugs to you and Freya! <3 <3 <3

Refinnej, jeez louise. I hope you get some rest soon, some how, some way.

I just came to tell a funny baby sleep story! The Magician still sleeps in the bed with me, but he only nurses once a night or so and doesn't necessarily want me to hold him in my arms all night, so he tends to migrate a little over the course of the evening. Often he'll squirm out of my arms and belly flop next to me and just sleep there. The other night he went to do this and ended up between me and solipsistnation, and I guess he didn't like that, because he sat up, shook his head (seriously!), climbed back over my body, eased himself down onto the floor next to my bed, then threw himself facedown and started snoring. And there he slept for about two hours until his brother needed to get by him to go to the bathroom. I don't think I could sleep through that. Babies are amazing.

nnej, I know you may not be checking this, but people on our AP boards tend to swear by Dr. Jay Gordon for adjusting sleep patterns: http://drjaygordon.com/attachment/sleeppattern.html

Oh Refinnej, thinking about you and hoping things have gotten better!! I know there's a wide range of normal but that really sounds like a good time to look for outside help. Your situation does not sound good for anyone.

So we haven't had a repeat of the sleeping-mostly-through-the-night because for various reasons (two houseguests in the last week, yesterday she was out cold and then the neighbors woke her up as I was griping elsewhere). It's so frustrating because it means the difference between a couple hours to myself in the evening followed by a long among of restful sleep, and carrying around a grouchy/overtired baby for a couple hours before being kept up half the night with nursing. I'm hoping we can get back on track with her sleeping in her bed. I spent some time reading stories to her in bed today to try to make it a more pleasantly associated place for her.

The most frustrating this is that she'll nurse and nurse and nurse and finally she'll be asleep and then my cat will start meowing and knocking shiitake off the nightstand for breakfast. And I love my cat, but at those times I want to throttle him.

Ha! I had Leela down just about asleep and Veto decided that it was the perfect time to throw his body against the door (all 25lbs of it) against the door repeatedly to be let into the bedroom and mew loudly. I have never felt so murderous. Luckily she settled again easily, but some nights that action is enough to mean another 2 hours of nursing to get her to go down. She's been going down by 9 so I get a bit of adult computer time, which is great.

The cat we need:

http://youtu.be/PWXigjFm4TM

With no houseguests (not sure but have a suspicion this is how she woke up two nights ago) or neighbors making noise, V stayed in her own bed and mostly slept from ~8 until 4. YES.

I preemptively fed the cat before going to bed and he didn't bug me for more food until an hour after we were up. YES.

The funny thing is that even though it is so refreshing to sleep how and when I want, I don't necessarily sleep all that well when she's out of the room. It's hard to train my body to sleep again!!

Leela is having a rough time these days. I'm thinking I might need to work on encouraging her to nap more

Last night she was exhausted so she we put her down at 6:30 instead of trying to keep her up until 8. So she woke up at 3 looking to party, and for the first time ever, only wanted her Dad, so I went back to sleep at 3:30 (YES!) and he stayed up until 4:30 playing with her. This morning he was absolutely exhausted, and really appreciative of the fact that for over a year now, I've been doing all the night time parenting so he could get his 8 hours of sleep a night.

Glad he had that experience, then! Malka has gone back to two naps a day during her illness. It's blissful, we'll see how long it lasts.

poopiebaby hasn't been napping at all, and 2 out of 3 nights he fights me at bedtime, too. Last night he finally went down at 10pm, the night before it was 11:30. No daytime naps. Nursing 4-5 times a night. Up by 7am. I have so many orders to fill every day and there is so much I just can't do while I'm caring for him, that I've been up until 2-3am every night just getting stuff done. I am so sick of this I could scream.

I am so sorry. Can Mr PB take over the nightime routine? I've been seeing you up all through the night with client orders and I imagine you are getting next to zero sleep.

Big hugs to you, and I hope things get better soon.

Thanks, Tofulish <3

Mr PB plays the helpless card when it comes to some things, like dealing with sleep at all, or poop, or washing/stuffing nappies, or feeding, or anything that doesn't involve the park or french fries. I dearly love it when he takes poopiebaby to the park so I can work, but damn. I'd love it more if I could sleep. That's for another thread though I guess.

Right now I feel so fortunate because poopiebaby went down at 8:30 and didn't get back up again, so he's been asleep for almost 5 hours (just a couple of months ago that would be unheard of), which is great because I've spent most of that time working. We're still napless, but this is the second night in a row that he has stayed in bed first try, so I am feeling less defeated than I was.

*hugs for PB* Yesterday V woke up during attempted car to bed transfers twice, so no real nap of substance, but she did go to sleep around 8 and not wake up until 5:30 this morning. BLISS. Except for the overtired all yesterday part.

Last night Leela insisted that only Daddy could put her to bed. It was rather lovely. Kind of hoping it continues and kind of sad that my kid was pushing me away crying, looking for Daddysnuggles.

There are benefits to being the non-preferred parent occasionally. :)

Malka fell asleep in the car on our long trip home last night, transferred easily to bed (~11pm), I went to bed at the same time instead of staying up doing nothing, she slept till 7, took a bottle, fell asleep again and woke up at 10 at which point I was perfectly happy to get up with her. It was kind of amazing.

Zephyr will only go to sleep if I put him down. It usually takes a couple tries, then he's good for the night. But it's so annoying to be the only one who can do it! He screams if his dad tries to put him to sleep. The rest of the day? They're best friends. Just not at night. And Z's naps have gotten shorter and shorter. He is only six months old - he needs to nap more! Ugh.

Leela is 13 months and 3 weeks and it just happened yesterday! And just once so far in her entire life. But it was very nice. You can definitely add her to the tooshortnap club though!

She has had one 30 min nap today and that was it. If she had 2 good naps, then I think she'd feel so much better. Instead our afternoons are a bit of an overtired mess. Once the holidays are over, I am going to try a stricter schedule, which kind of sucks because it means missing out on a lot of flexibility.

Tofulish, when grey was younger I felt like I could be really flexible and push him, now that there is only one nap, maybe two at best, I just have to say no to activities I know we would both enjoy and be home for naps. I also used to try and let him nap in the car; not anymore. It's hard, but I know we all feel better when he gets a really good nap!

Thanks for the feedback! How do you do that - do you just set aside time for quiet even if he doesn't go down?

She generally falls asleep on our dogwalk (about 45 mins) and stays asleep for a bit longer for a morning nap, but we don't have a natural break for an afternoon nap, so that is really hairy, but I know she still needs it. Today she was exhausted at 5 so she has been asleep for a while. I might wake her at around 9 or let her wake naturally at 2 (boo).

Maybe you can start working on getting her to sleep in bed for a longer morning nap and move your long dog walk to the afternoon so she can use that time for a second nap? It seems really important for Malka to take her long nap in bed these days, otherwise she rouses herself much earlier.

Thanks for the thoughts! She sleeps for a longer time in the carrier than she does in the bed for some reason... Its also hard to move the dog walk, because Cuddles is on high alert until it happens.

She needs more naps though...

So maybe Cuddles gets two walks?

No. It takes me forfreakingever to get L changed and dressed and on my back. Plus its cold out there.

But I definitely hear you about trying to schedule a bed nap!

Yeah, I really think bed naps are the best. Maybe the bed nap will be the afternoon nap? Malka switches back and forth between one nap and two, but when she gets two, her nap schedules follow the 2-3-4 rule (well, not the 4 so much, if she takes an afternoon nap she winds up going to bed like two hours after waking up).

ETA: Today I got stuck inside for 3 hours during an unexpectedly long morning nap and was itching to leave the house the whole time and at the end of that we only had an hour to do something fun before everything worthwhile closed, so I hear you on the messed up schedule. Mr. A finds that on a regular day he never leaves the house until after the first nap, and sometimes that means he doesn't leave the house till after 2. Hard to schedule your life around that. On my off day I try to plan an activity before the first nap and then let her take a nap in the car, but again, that risks cutting the nap short.