Dear Joseph! He really is quite a kid. He's nine months old now and just an adorable child. He has a big, full-faced grin that lights up a room. He has twinkly hazel eyes and curly lashes. His hair has the dearest way of growing in wisps over his forehead. His chin is as prominent as his nose. While I call Greta a "sturdy girl," I call Joseph a "wiry boy." He is longer and much thinner than Greta ever was, but he is strong. So strong! If he's not pulling himself up on something, he's pulling something down. And he's fast. He comes at you across the floor like a bulldozer, ready to take on anything in his path.
In anyone else's world, I'm sure he would rank as an "easy baby." From 0 to 8 months, he really was. Just a happy, loveable, contented little soul. But something's gotten into him recently. Perhaps it's because I'm so tired to begin with and because my attention is divided between two babies, but I've found myself so angry and frustrated with Joseph. He's stopped sleeping well at night.
He acts like a newborn... from what other people tell me. I was blessed with two very good newborns so I'm spoiled. But he is up several times a night to nurse and I'm having the hardest time falling back to sleep while he's nursing. I'm pretty sure Greta did something similar, but the key difference is that Greta would sleep indefinitely as long as I was nursing her. So we'd sleep in until 9 or 10 am. Not Joseph! He could audition to be someone's rooster based on how punctually he wakes up and crows. By 6:30 am, he is up. Not just up, but up and ready to play. It infuriates him to no end if his parents (what else are they supposed to be doing?) are not up and moving about or playing with him. We've tried a lot of things. But he's a smart kid (did I mention that?) and knows when he is being thwarted. If we put him on the floor to play in his toybox, he pulls on the sheets of the bed and yells until someone picks him up. If he was a dog, I'd give him away at that point. Fortunately for him, he isn't. His latest stunt is to stand on our pillows (or heads) and look out the bedroom window, which is at the head of the bed. He LOVES that window. He yells at the neighbors, the trees, whathaveyou for minutes at a time.
Any ideas? I need more sleep. The lack thereof is making me hate my life.
Much to my horror I succumbed to the heart of stone cry it out method when Julia was exactly 9 months old. I was super super opposed but I was getting sick from the lack of sleep and insane frustration every night brought.
ReplyDeleteI'll send you my post about it. I highly recommend but hated and still sometimes hate it!
But mama needs sleep and minimal sanity!!!
I am sure you have already thought about this, but is it possible to try a later bed time? I have always done an 8-8:30 bedtime for Maddox, because I knew I would never be a pleasant person if my child was one that woke up at 6:30 each day. I am hoping Mason will be okay with that schedule too, because I love getting up at 8:30 every day. It keeps mama happy!
ReplyDeleteOh girls...
ReplyDeleteJosephs goes to bed at 8 or 8:30 most nights. Rarely earlier, sometimes later. Problem is, I go to bed between 11:30 and 1am. Which is when Joseph wakes up for his first feeding. I don't mind that, but it's his 3-4am feeding that's killing me. Like I was telling Grace, I'm all about crying it out, but he's still in our room (no where else to put him yet), and it's torturous to try to sleep at 3am AND listen to him scream bloody murder. Besides, our neighbor has informed us that she can hear him at night. Lovely. I just don't know. Someone remind me that they grow out of this, please?
That's so tough! Is he actually hungry at both of those feedings? Is it possible to try and cut one of them out so he will eat more at the other and sleep longer?
ReplyDeleteSteph, that's what I'm planning to do. I'm going to stick him in Greta's room (and her in our room) at 3am to miss that feeding. Ugh. But it's almost more work than it seems worth. It's hard to be disciplined when you're tired :)
ReplyDeleteThey grow out of this :) Maybe he's teething, or getting ready to do attempt some spectacular milestone. I feel your pain; my two year old is sleeping worse than my newborn right now. She wakes up in the middle of the night and just cries and cries forever, just a sad, tired cry that won't end. She better be teething, for her sake ;)
ReplyDeleteOh man, I feel your pain! It's funny how similar our kids are, except Tony was a HORRIFIC sleeper for his first year. I had to kick him out of our bed at 3 months because he refused to sleep without a nipple in his mouth. I found I couldn't even unlatch to lay him in his crib without waking him up, so I eventually resorted to a modified cry it out. I sat in the rocking chair and rocked him until he fell asleep. There was lots of screaming from him and crying by me, but eventually, after what felt like forever, he learned to go to sleep. Granted, I only had one kid to keep alive, so the lack of sleep was somehow doable. Like Greta, Tony was great at sleeping in until 9-10 as long as I nursed him in time (how magical was that!). He also didn't start sleeping through the night until he was a year old. I still believe that if I survived that first year, I can survive almost anything!
ReplyDeleteRocco is much better, but he still nurses every two hours or so all night. Every once in a while he wakes up at some heathen hour (usually about 3am) and proceeds to wiggle about the bed, pull my hair, play with the window, climb on or over me, and occasionally bite me, for TWO HOURS. Both my boys pop up at 7am, ready to go, and I am NOT a morning person!
I wish I knew the answer to your baby woes, because I could use the info myself! I just keep telling myself that eventually things will right themselves, even if I have no idea how. Here's a big, sleepy hug to ya! It DOES end, we just need to persevere.
This too will pass! Promise!! You're a great mom and it will get so much better as he simply can't keep this up forever, right? Can dear husband get up and bounce him or distract him during that middle of the night feeding to try to break the cycle? So feeling your pain!
ReplyDelete