I promised myself I would never write an apology post for being a bad blogger. But guys? I’m sorry. This whole week has been a blur. First of all, snow. It was just 5 inches but it has screwed this whole week up. My coworker’s kids are out of school so work is a little out of sorts. Mike’s daycare is closed and S. spent 2 days home because of the feds closing and having a wicked cold. As for Charlie, it’s too cold to take him for a good walk, and too cold to venture to Day Camp. Needless to say I am climbing the walls. But mainly, I have been doing laundry because everything Mike touches has snot or throw up on it. Poor guy has an icky cold which is more time consuming than I could have imagined 8 months ago.

Yesterday was the worst. All Mike wanted to do was be held. Not worn, not laying next to me – held. Which is difficult when I work from home and have a million other things to do. I really depend on his naps which is the obvious problem. I would rock and rock him to sleep, then rock until he was REALLY asleep, then put him in the crib and he would instantly become hysterical. I even let him cry it out for 15 minutes only to go in there and he had spit up over everything – blanket, sheets, himself, everything. Cue the momma meltdown which sent us both to a warm bubble bath to try to relax. By the time S. got home, Mike was a happy baby again as if to prove I am a total drama queen and liar.

Then came bedtime. Mike fell asleep at a decent hour and slept until 9P when he woke up suddenly hysterical. I brought him to S. in bed so I could finish some work, but he had yet to calm down by the time I finished, so I brought him to the couch with me. He calmed down a bit, we wiped his nose and then I heard it. The tummy grumble. By the time I registered what was about to happen, he had spit up all over my shirt. S. came to the rescue so I could get cleaned up, but then it happened again. But much worse.

All. Over. S.

Then again. All over his playmat which you think would be great because we could easily wipe it down, but we didn’t have that kind of luck. One of the star pieces was missing and when we lifted it up there was a perfectly shaped star puddle of throw up.  At the risk of sounding gross, the beagle was very excited. Back to the bathtub we go!

After a bath with a fussy baby and new jammies, which we are quickly running out of with all the washing, Mike snuggled with me on the couch while S. cleaned up the mess (he scored major major daddy points considering he is sick himself). Around midnight I went to put a very asleep Mike into his crib and he INSTANTLY woke up. Back to the couch where we both dozed off and when I woke up around 3AM he went into his crib without waking up. He must have felt some sort of remorse because he let me sleep until 8:30AM.

We seem to be on an uptick today, but still very clingy and spit-uppy making any sort of productivity impossible.

If this has bought with the cold has taught me anything, it’s sometimes you just have to do what’s best for your kid and if that means sitting on the couch snuggling watching Doc McStuffins, then so be it. I’ll sleep when I’m dead. And even then I will be waiting for him to wake up in the middle of the night.

So remember last week when I was convinced I was screwing Mike up because I wasn’t letting him cry it out when he was waking up hysterical in the middle of the night?

And remember all the things we tried to solve the random problem? Like buying a space heater and flannel sheets? Turning on white noise, turning off white noise, turning on talk radio, turning OFF talk radio, tushie pats, back rubs, formula, water, begging, pleading? None of those worked by the way.

So why was Mike waking up hysterical all of a sudden? Here is the conversation that went at our house on Friday morning.

Jackie (6AM): Holy crap! Mike slept all night! God is good!

S.: So what was different?

Jackie: I have no idea. None whatsoever.

(later in the day)

Jackie: His jammies didn’t have feet (to S. and his momma who was visiting)

S: What?

Jackie: Last night. His jammies didn’t have feet. His feet are always covered in the footed jammies. They weren’t last night.

S: There we go!

Jackie: If we do the footless jammies and he sleeps all night again, I am going to be pissed.

(the next morning)

Jackie: Mike slept through the night. I am cutting the feet out of his damn jammies.

So my dear friends … 3 weeks of sleepless nights, a doctor’s visit, countless hours researching night terrors and sleep training and he just didn’t like his feet covered. Duh.

If I don’t laugh, I cry.

I really feel like I need someone smarter and more experienced than me to tell me what to do next with this kid. Honestly, things just don’t occur to me – like when to give solids or when to start weening him off the night bottle. I just never really gave it much thought. If it wasn’t for the BabyCenter emails Mike would still be in a swaddler eating 2 ounces of formula like he did in the hospital. Not because I don’t want him to grow up, but because it doesn’t dawn on me that things need to change. And my little bug is just so go with the flow he doesn’t usually make me think otherwise.

I joke with my Momma friends that each day is a day I wonder how I am going to screw him up. Today I’m pretty sure not starting sleep training earlier has screwed him up.

If you have been following me on Facebook, it isn’t a secret that Mikey isn’t sleeping. Well. He sleeps, just not like he should be (apparently) at this age. He goes down at 8P, wakes up HYSTERICAL at 11P and after we rock him back to sleep, he is up every hour or two after that. Some nights. Other nights it’s different, but this foolishness has been going on for 3 weeks. We’ve tried EVERYTHING – temperature, sheets, music, no music, white noise, no white noise, gas drops, Ibuprofen ….

Guys. I’m tired.

So. Tired. 

Yesterday we finally went to the doctor, who was very nice, but confirmed nothing was medically wrong with our boy. He was probably having a night terror and when we pick him up, he wakes up and for the rest of the night he cries because he knows we will pick him up and snuggle. Doc asked if we were sleeping training. Um. No. Don’t we start that when he is 10 or 15 or something?

It never dawned on me, or us for that matter, to sleep train. Don’t babies cry at night? It wasn’t a huge inconvenience to my schedule so I never gave it much thought. Until now.

Doc told us to let him ‘cry it out’ with the night terror since it will pass and he won’t remember it and you shouldn’t wake him up. For just the run of the mill waking up, he recommended the Ferber method. S. and I both have mixed reactions to that, but decided last night to give it a try.

Mike went down around 8P and he fussed a bit since he wasn’t totally asleep. 5 minutes later, I went in, patted his tush and he was out. See? Not that hard. Around 2A (!!!!) he woke up hysterical and S. and I decided to give it 15 minutes. I patiently watched the video monitor and rushed in at the 15 minute mark when he was still going strong.

But wait.

What was I suppose to do at the 15 minute mark? Pick him up? Pat his butt? Shit. I didn’t think that far ahead. So I picked him up and rocked him. Probably not the right thing, but I wasn’t sure what I was suppose to do. S. and I agreed to start researching other sleep training methods to start on Saturday night. Mike’s Bubbe is in town Friday night and it is just too much to try to get him on a schedule until it calms down in the house.

Look, it’s not that I don’t like to hear my baby cry. I hate it, but I have it in perspective. Short term pain for long term gain, as long as he is safe. I am just not sure the Ferber Method is the right one for us. Co-sleeping isn’t right for us either. There has to be something in the middle right? What has worked for your little?