Wednesday, January 27, 2010

beyond exhausted (warning, serious gripeing ahead)

Is there a term for beyond exhausted?  Catatonic?  Comatose, maybe?  Well, that is where I am these days.

My dear, sweet baby boy is getting too big and too strong to sleep in his bouncy seat.  He has slept in his bouncy seat pretty much every night since he was born... until Monday, that is.  At approximately 2:30 am (so I guess technically it was Tuesday morning) I heard him wake up and fuss a little.  As I was making the zombie stumble to the attic (the warmest room in our house hence Matthews temporary bedroom), I heard him let out a wail that was clearly about more than being hungry.  When I opened the attic door he was still strapped in his bouncy seat, but it was now on top of him and he was laying on his head!  No worries, it was the side of his head so he wasn't suffocating, but he was clearly not happy about the situation.
After I calmed him and fed him I tried to fight through my mind-numbing exhaustion to decide where to have him sleep the rest of the night, as the bouncy seat was clearly not an option anymore.  I ended up proping him on a pillow so his head was raised (his chronically stuffy nose was the whole reason he was sleeping in the bouncy in the first place) and the suggled up next to him to finish out the night.  Matthew woke up about every half hour to fuss for a minute and then went back to sleep.  He followed that pattern until about 7:15am when I left him sleeping soundly to go and get Samuel ready for school.
Last night I slept him in his crib for the first time.  He had a hard time going to sleep and eventually crashed around 9pm.  An hour and a half later than usual.  He then proceeded to wake up at 11:00pm (after which point I went to bed), 3:30am and then was up for the day at 5:30am.  Since John's pager went off around 2:00am and James came in our room for some reason around 5:00am, it was a ROUGH night.  John had relocated to the attic at some point since he had a hard time getting back to sleep after his page so I brought the very awake, very loud Matthew into our room with me.  I tried to get him to lay down with me but he started screaming.  My final soultion:  I hung his jumper in the doorway of our bathroom and put him in it.  He was still loud off and on, but at least I got a few cat naps in.  I woke up to silence at 6:45 and realized that he had fallen asleep in his jumper!  I pulled him out, put him in bed with me and went back to sleep only to be woken up by James at 7:15 and then Samuel at 8:00 when I finally dragged myself out of bed for the day.  I am so tired today that I don't even have a word to describe it.
Nights like these are one of the things about having a newborn that I must have blocked out!  Anyone want to pull the night shift tonight?

3 comments:

Jill said...

That is exactly why Allison is the last in the long series of Hawley kids. I feel for ya!!

Amy said...

I feel your pain. Embry has been a very difficult baby. I wish so much that I could come and help out.

Anonymous said...

{{{{{{HUGS TO YOU}}}}}}

Darling, I'm sorry I *just* got rid of the angle pillow that goes UNDER the crib sheet (used for both Robby and Desmond) that helps keep the baby's head up (both Robby and Des had reflux, Robby worse than Des) and it helped ALOT. I remember it being less than $20 and WORTH EVERY PENNY.

I'll look for a link for you when I get home from picking up AJ. Remind me if I forget--MOMMY NEEDS SLEEP!

Hang in there,
XOXOXO
Jewels