Raincity Mama

The day came and we (finally!) moved the kids into their own room. We have co-slept with the kids since they were born. Even in the hos­pi­tal I’d sneak a baby into my bed. It was just so much eas­ier to nurse them hav­ing them right next to me and I got more sleep!

As they grew older they’d go through growth spurts, either phys­i­cal or emo­tional and I’d tell my hus­band that I’d had it and that we were mov­ing them out. He’d sup­port me and ask me to for­mu­late a plan and then he’d help. We’d get through the spurt and the kids would set­tle back to an accept­able sleep­ing pattern.

We are at the tail end of another growth spurt that has been par­tic­u­larly dif­fi­cult. That cou­pled with the fact that they will sleep for longer stretches if I’m not in the room made the deci­sion to move them into their own room eas­ier. Another huge decid­ing fac­tor is that I want to sleep with my hus­band again!

Let me explain. We had two queen size mat­tresses on the floor in our room. I slept on one mat­tress with the kids and my hus­band slept on the other. There were times when one of the kids would go cud­dle with him but for the most part they slept next to me. I’ve come to real­ize that I haven’t been mak­ing my hus­band a pri­or­ity and I think that sleep­ing next to him is a pretty big step in the right direction.

The kids have always had a room but they had never slept in it. I’m not sure what I’d envi­sioned. We had always intended that they would sleep in our room as new­borns but we never had a plan for mov­ing them out. Their room had a crib in it for a while. It came in handy for hold­ing clothes and toys for the babies! We tried the crib for a while once the babies got too big to sleep side-by-side in the co-sleeper attached to our bed. I’d lay our son down in the crib and he’d imme­di­ately start squawk­ing. It didn’t mat­ter how long I rocked him as soon as his head touched the mat­tress he’d complain.

The tran­si­tion went smoother than I expected. The first night we had been out and the kids fell asleep in the car so I slept in their room with them. The next night we went upstairs and ush­ered them into their “new room!” and had new stuffed ani­mals there to greet them. For the next few days they were quite excited and they talked about their room often.

It has been almost two weeks now and my daugh­ter now sleeps through the night!!! and my son sleeps a six or seven hour stretch. I think we lucked out with tim­ing it right and really, I think that the kids were ready and able to han­dle it. Plus, the hus­band and I actu­ally sleep together again! At this rate, we’re going to actu­ally have to start using birth con­trol again!

At work we were talk­ing about sleep, or lack thereof, and being tired. I tried telling my co-workers that I win at being tired. I’m a pro­fes­sional at walk­ing around sleep deprived. They didn’t believe me so I told them what it means to be really tired.

When the babies where new­borns it was hard. I’ve blocked out for­got­ten a lot about those early days but I do recall that I was always extremely tired. I’m sur­prised that I didn’t spon­ta­neously fall asleep. I remem­ber being in my room try­ing to nap while my par­ents or hus­band were watch­ing the kids. I remem­ber feel­ing frus­trated hear­ing the ryth­mic thump of house music pump away while I tried to drift off to sleep. This went on for days, maybe weeks, I’m not really sure. I remem­ber think­ing that it was odd that I’d notice the music when I was try­ing to sleep but I couldn’t hear it when I was down­stairs with the kids. I’d for­get about it and carry on with the chaos that was my life.

I finally asked my hus­band about it one day after it had tak­ing me a long time to fall asleep. He looked con­fused. He wasn’t play­ing any music and he said that the neigh­bours weren’t play­ing any music. Both of us were quite puz­zled and he was a tiny bit wor­ried. I received an email from the mul­ti­ples group that I belong to and there was a thread about sleep depri­va­tion and one woman wrote about being so tired that she started hear­ing “things”. I was aghast that any­one would let them­selves get so tired that they’d start hear­ing voices. I told the hus­band about this poor woman and you should have seen the look on his face. Such a mix­ture of pity and con­cern. He pointed out that I was hear­ing non-existent house music and that I was in fact hav­ing audi­tory hal­lu­ci­na­tions too.

I was dumb­struck! No, it wasn’t some­thing I could be in denial about. I was hear­ing this music and it was not real. My hus­band and par­ents tried to ensure that I’d be able to get naps in more often and the hal­lu­ci­na­tions went away. I’m still sleep deprived on a daily basis, but it’s get­ting bet­ter. On a good day I get almost four hours of sleep in a row but when the kids are sick I get two to three hours in a row. As long as the music doesn’t start up again I think I’m doing pretty good. I rarely drive, so I’m not wor­ried about falling asleep behind the wheel.

So my announce­ment to my co-workers that I’ve been so tired that I’ve heard non-existent music was met with smirks and weird looks. It wasn’t until I told them that it was house music that they burst out laugh­ing. Come on, it is funny. I can’t think any­one would fall asleep lis­ten­ing to house music. Now I’m on the look­out for the prankster that is going to start play­ing house music qui­etly in their cube in an effort to see me freak out. I’ll just bob my head along to the nst nst nst beat, feel­ing thank­ful that those days are behind me and I have the abil­ity to laugh at what was a very tir­ing phase of my life.

What is the most tired you’ve ever been? Have you ever expe­ri­enced audi­tory hal­lu­ci­na­tions? Come on, share your story.

Today is day­light sav­ings and we “spring ahead” but I’m still feel­ing like I’m falling behind. Today was great, I’m just pooped and that is after a two hour nap for myself. We haven’t made any real head­way in get­ting the kids into their own room let alone get­ting them to sleep with­out nurs­ing or pac­ing. Tonight, the hus­band took the girl down­stairs while I got the boy to sleep. Usu­ally he is asleep within min­utes but tonight he strug­gled to set­tle down. I slipped out of bed and noticed that the hus­band and girl are down­stairs in the dark. Usu­ally she screams if he tries to get her to go to sleep but tonight all is quiet so I sit here in the office only lit by the glow of my mon­i­tor wait­ing to see if he can get her into bed with­out her wak­ing up.

It seems like this is harder than it needs to be. I feel like I’ve messed up some­where along the way and try­ing to fix it is so hard. I’m so chron­i­cally sleep deprived that I can no longer remem­ber what it feels like to be well rested. I am amazed that I could actu­ally sleep this after­noon. Recently I’ve been unable to nap dur­ing the day. It is so frus­trat­ing to line things up so that I can go upstairs and get time to nap and then lay there in bed toss­ing and turn­ing or bounc­ing right on the edge of sleep but still keenly aware of what is going on down­stairs. I think I may have to go back to using earplugs.

Bah! Spring is on the way and I’m really look­ing for­ward to warmer, sun­nier weather. It actu­ally snowed here today? WTF?!? I think that Van­cou­ver gets a light dust­ing on snow in March so I’m hop­ing that this is it for the year and we can move on to spring for real. I’m ready to spring ahead!

The other night I strug­gled to get my daugh­ter to go to sleep. I feel like I’ve let her down. Get­ting her to go to sleep is such a pain in my ass. She didn’t want to nap that day, my mom strug­gled to get her to sleep. Finally she fell asleep at 2pm and my mom wanted her to get some sleep so she let her sleep until 4pm. I rec­og­nize that nap­ping is impor­tant but let­ting her sleep so late in the day just set us up for a ridicu­lous bed­time. It was 10:15 by the time I got her to sleep and it wasn’t with­out many tears.

We decided long ago to not do cry-it-out and I feel con­flicted about it so much. Am I fail­ing her by not teach­ing her to sleep? Shouldn’t she be able to put her­self to sleep by now? Should I be set­ting a sched­ule and stick­ing to it no mat­ter what? I flip flop about where I stand on this. I don’t want to put her in a room and shut the door leav­ing her to fig­ure it out. That seems cruel. I’ve been there *every* night since she was born, nurs­ing her to sleep. It seems like she has out­grown the rou­tine but *she* isn’t sure how to give it up. She wants to lay down and nurse but that doesn’t get her to sleep. I’ve been get­ting the boy to sleep and then get­ting up with her and going down­stairs and pac­ing in the dark. This “rou­tine” doesn’t really work either. Some nights she puts her head down and drifts off to sleep with lit­tle effort. Other nights she talks, kicks her legs and flaps her arms in an effort to stay awake. Her body is tired but her brain is refus­ing to let her sleep. I wish I could wig­gle my nose and she would mag­i­cally be asleep.

On nights were I’m tired and she is fight­ing sleep I ques­tion the rou­tine the most. I find myself get­ting so angry and in the light of day it seems silly but down­stairs pac­ing in the dark I feel anger and resent­ment bub­ble up inside of me. I’ve read that if I resent some­thing I need to change it but I’m at a loss as to how to move to the next step. I have a vague idea of how to pro­ceed but I feel like exe­cut­ing the change is impos­si­ble. I’m tired and angry and that doesn’t seem like the best time to start mak­ing changes.

I rec­og­nized right away that get­ting angry isn’t going to help her go to sleep, hav­ing some­one yell at you to “go to sleep” isn’t going to work. So as I felt the irri­ta­tion bub­ble up inside of me I knew I had to dif­fuse the sit­u­a­tion, so I imag­ined the anger and resent­ment bub­bling out my nose. Now I defy you to imag­ing bub­bles float­ing out of your nose and to stay angry. It is quite a silly image. I firmed the image in my head and the bub­bles were small and com­pact, tiny and bright. I felt myself start to relax and the bub­bles got big­ger, bob­bing, wig­gling, the film hold­ing them together get­ting thin­ner and thin­ner. The bub­bles quiv­ered and shook and then popped. I held onto this image until I felt bet­ter. It didn’t take long and I felt my body relax. It can’t be con­ducive to sleep to have some­one angry and rigid hold­ing you, try­ing to lull you to sleep in stiff arms.

My daugh­ter set­tled down and soon she was asleep. I hes­i­tated to write about this because I hate putting it out there that this is hard and that I’m strug­gling. Yet another mommy blog­ger writ­ing a whiny post. But I think that being hon­est about my par­ent­ing expe­ri­ence, the good and the bad, will only help me be a bet­ter par­ent. I’m not per­fect and per­haps if I can show my kids how I strug­gle and still find a way to per­se­vere and have a sense of humor I am doing right by them. So now I have a secret weapon for the next time I’m feel­ing anger start­ing to take hold of me. Bub­bles, lots and lots of bubbles.

I  still nurse the kids to sleep but for my daugh­ter it is a 50/50 shot as to whether or not she will actu­ally go to sleep with­out fur­ther inter­ven­tion. This post is about what get­ting her to sleep looks like.

We lay in the dark and she flaps her arms and unlatches. She rolls over and rubs her eyes and starts to chat­ter. We came upstairs to bed because she looks exhausted but for some rea­son her body wants to stay awake. My son is asleep so I pick her up and take her downstairs.

We enter the dark­ened liv­ing room and she says “pick a boook and read?” as I start to pace across the rug. I set­tle into a com­fort­able stance and she puts her head down but it pops right back up. “A nurse?” and I sway as I pace the room. I am silent and con­fi­dent that I can help her go to sleep.

She puts her head back down and I feel her hand fid­get. She moves try­ing to find a com­fort­able spot to set­tle in.

Sway, sway, sway.

“A boook and read” is more of a state­ment that an request and she barely lifts her head. I feel her legs flex­ing and her hands open and close as her body fights off sleep. I’m tired myself, bed­time has been going on for over an hour, I just want her to go to sleep. I stay quiet but I start to dis­pare that she will never go to sleep.

Sway, sway, sway.

Her body sinks into me as she starts to drift off to sleep when sud­denly her body jolts as if giv­ing one last effort at keep­ing her awake. I feel a spark of hope.

Sway, sway, sway.

Sweat start to form on her head and her breath­ing slows and deep­ens. I stand on the rug sway­ing with her in my arms. I watch check the clock. I’ve been down­stairs with her for 35 min­utes. My feet are cold and my back aches but if I try to take her up to bed right now she may wake so I stand there for a few extra minutes.

As the min­utes tick past I find myself feel­ing frus­trated that this is turn­ing into our rou­tine. It’s only upon reflec­tion that I can see that this won’t last for long. That one day she will refuse my embrace.

After five min­utes pass I creep across the floor and start up the stairs. She barely stirs in my arms. I pad into the bed­room and crawl onto the mat­tress. My son is still asleep, he has barely moved. I gen­tly lower her body and she sighs as I pull my arms away.

My arms feel weight­less after hold­ing her for so long. She is grow­ing so fast, they both are. I watch them sleep for a brief moment before I slip out of the room. I feel happy that  I was able to help her get to sleep. We won.

For the past cou­ple of nights get­ting my daugh­ter to go to sleep has been ridicu­lously hard. Our usual rou­tine is to fin­ish up din­ner, brush teeth, change dia­pers, get into PJs and then read a book or two. Some­times we don’t even read a book. My son usu­ally drifts off to sleep with­out much effort. We nurse and he ends up asleep within min­utes. My daugh­ter nurses, unlatches, flaps her arms, kicks her legs, talks, sings, any­thing to keep her­self awake. Tonight I had had enough. I had been try­ing to get her to sleep for over an hour and she wasn’t show­ing any signs of giv­ing in any­time soon. I told her that nurse had gone to sleep and that she needed to go to sleep too. She whined and com­plained and I told her over and over again that nurse had gone to sleep and that she could have nurse once she woke up. Then she started telling me “up, up, up” to let me know that she was up and that she wanted to nurse.

I stood up with her and swayed and rubbed her back and shushed. She’d put her head down for a few min­utes and then start com­plain­ing again. I con­tin­ued to reas­sure her that she was fine and that she needed to go to sleep. Within min­utes she stopped lif­ing up her head and I heard her breath­ing slow and she melted into me. I stood there with her in my arms for a few more min­utes to ensure that she was indeed asleep and then shuf­fled over to the bed and gen­tly laid her down. I glanced at the time and it took 27 min­utes to get her to fall asleep. I’ve been reluc­tant to start this but over­all it was fairly painless.

After I left the room I felt a jum­ble of emo­tions. Happy that I got her to go to sleep. Exhausted from lack of sleep. Guilty because I don’t like refus­ing her requests. Sad because she is no longer a tiny baby that needs me as tiny babies do. I look for­ward to hav­ing my body be my own again. This is the first step on the path to wean­ing her.

My son woke up and started scream­ing. I don’t mean the usual squeaks, I mean “holy crap! I need help! Some­thing is really wrong up here” scream­ing. Both my hus­band and I bounded up the stairs and rushed into the room. Our son was mov­ing across the bed and still scream­ing. He has woken up our daugh­ter who was start­ing to cry too; not that I blame her with the ruckus that was going on.

I picked him up and tried to con­sole him but he was rigid. His eyes were wide open but I don’t think he saw me. I tried stroking his face and whis­per­ing in his ear and that had absolutely no response. The hus­band took him so that I could con­sole her. My hus­band took him over to the win­dow and raised the blind to see if the light from the street would snap him out of it. He didn’t stop cry­ing but I could see that he was respon­sive. My hus­band tucked him back into bed and it took a good 15 min­utes to get him to go back to sleep.

I met the hus­band in the office and we both think that it could have been a night ter­ror. After din­ner while we were clean­ing up I started laugh­ing because our daugh­ter stepped on some ice and started to hop because it was cold. He didn’t like that I was laugh­ing so he grabbed a piece of ice and started to chase me and try to put it down my shirt or pants. I shrieked and laughed and tried to get away. Our son was frozen and looked scared and even though I tried reas­sur­ing him that I was fine he started to cry. I for­get that he is such a sen­si­tive soul. I thought all was well because he stopped cry­ing and I changed him into his paja­mas and we headed to bed.

Need­less to say both my hus­band and I feel hor­ri­ble. To think that us goof­ing around scared him so much that he took that energy to bed makes me quite sad. I for­get that this age they have no con­cept about pre­tend, every­thing is real. No more rough play in front of the kids. I don’t want to deal with any more night terrors.

The twins are in the mid­dle of the 18-month growth spurt, devel­op­men­tal spurt, a cold and teething to boot. They have never been great sleep­ers but this has been crazy; tak­ing for­ever to fall asleep, wak­ing up every hour or so, and then wak­ing up for the day at 5am when they usu­ally sleep until 7:30. I could han­dle one of these but the com­bi­na­tion has made for a very tired mommy. The kids seem to be get­ting over the cold and hav­ing the vapour­izer run­ning in the room at night seems to have made all the dif­fer­ence. It has been a crazy two weeks but we seem to be on the tail end of this stage. There is a rea­son that sleep depri­va­tion is used as a method to break peo­ple, but I have sur­vived. Just mark this as another step in my train­ing. From what I have read, they will go through another stage like this next year, so I will have to stay on my toes. At least I will have year to catch up on my sleep.