Monday, July 12, 2010

Insomnia

It has been four days.

And I'm on the verge. On the verge of totally and completely losing it.

The line between sanity and insanity is starting to blur.

But let me start at the beginning.

As I have mentioned before, Claire struggles to sleep. And every time we develop a trick to lull her to sleep, she outsmarts it.

First, it was the swing.



Then the binky.



Then the blanket.



I really thought the blanket was the key. I was sure that was the one thing she had been missing— something to snuggle with.

It lasted nine days. Nine glorious days. She would pull that blanket up to her face and within minutes she was lights out.

But last week, it stopped working.

Which coincided with her getting a virus and a sore throat, which I'm positive made the whole mess even worse. She now refuses to sleep. No swing. No binky. Especially no blanket. And it's not that she isn't tired. Because you can tell she's tired. Between every wail is a yawn and heavy eyelids.

We're now on Day Four. Four days of a sick, exhausted, crying baby.

This morning she woke up at 6:15 a.m. We ate, we burped, we tried to sleep. Six hours later, she had not slept a wink and had resorted to just full on screaming.

I was at my wits end. I strapped them in, loaded them up and hit the road.

Oh, and I know all the advice about not using a crutch to get your baby to sleep. Because then she will always need it. And I wholeheartedly agree with said advice.

But when your baby is crying because she hasn't slept in six hours and and you're crying because your baby is crying and Grace is crying because, well, she feels left out, you're willing to try anything.



By the way, this parenting thing is freaking hard.

3 comments:

Gina said...

You are doing a fine job Katie!! just do whatever works for you...Love ya lots!!

Lyndsay said...

I can totally relate. Every time you think you have a routine you can predict, babies throw a wrench in the works. Lesson: never trust a baby.

It will get better. Someday, sooner than you'll believe, they'll be hiding under the covers and begging for five more minutes of sleep. That's a good time to pick out garage sale fodder from the mountain of toys...

Amy said...

Oh Katie, I feel your pain! I think the sleep thing is the absolute hardest part of parenting, hands down!!! Pax was our stubborn baby, and I didn't think he was ever going to sleep through the night!! The only thing that helped me was chanting "this too shall pass, this too shall pass" or "it can't ALWAYS be this bad, it can't ALWAYS be this bad" well that and lots of crying (me AND Pax). I promise it gets better, I know it's so hard right now. I am sorry she is sick, Harper is sick right now also and we are going on night 3 of little to no sleep. I am pretty much walking around in a fog, and we won't EVEN talk about how many times I messed up at work today. Hope she feels better (and sleeps) soon!!