The Good and Beautiful

I feel like writing about how ridiculously hard this long-term, reduces me-to-the-rawest-of-nerves sleep deprivation is going.  But just thinking about summoning those words makes me want to cry.

I often have the desire to write.  But in between the endless days with the kids, my barely-getting-it-done work, and my desperate and usually failed attempts to get rest, writing gets shuffled to the bottom of priorities.

There are many good and beautiful things going on, even as I fight the brain fog that seems to be winning.

These two are my good and my beautiful.

Every time I feel the desire to write about my girls, I start looking at their photos, and my words seem to escape me. 

I just can't seem to get past how much their growing love and friendship gets to me.  It's like magic.  It's healing.  It definitely makes me forget how many times I'm up at night... at least for a few minutes.  You know, until the next power struggle, tantrum, or screeching baby breaks the spell.

It's so beautiful to watch unfold.  What gets me more than anything is how much Ruby loves her sister.  How hard she will laugh at Cora's antics.  Gut-splitting, breath-stopping laughter. 
 

I see their love for one another and I can't believe I ever doubted the decision to add to our family.  So many of my worries seem so silly now.  I worried about how Cora would feel about her sister, about how my relationship with her would change.  I didn't spend nearly as much time thinking about how it would be for Ruby to enter this family.

Turns out Ruby thinks it's a hoot.  And I'm so glad.

I know that their relationship will grow and change as they grow and change.  Already, I'm feeling dizzy from how fast things are going.  This baby will be running circles around me very, very soon.  This big girl is almost done with her first year of preschool and is astounding me all the time.

This life is full of beauty and joy and love.

But damn it, I'd enjoy it so much more with a little bit of sleep.

Transitions

We've been on a pretty long and slow path in our quest to get a decent night's sleep around here.  I've blogged about it before, although it's been a while.  And although things have improved, it's been a constant struggle.

Before Cora had her tonsils and adenoids out in early 2012, it was not uncommon for her to wake up 50 times a night and to need help to get back to sleep every time.  When you're singing Hallelujah when you get a solid 1-hour block of sleep, you can resort to pretty desperate measures.  Ours included doing whatever it took to get her to sleep as quickly as possible. 

So we co-slept.  Since she had significant sleep apnea, it also helped alleviate our nervousness over her breathing.

Since her tonsillectomy, things got a little better.  But still, she'd awaken quite a few times a night and always need help going back to sleep, often waking for hours in the middle of the night. 

Eventually, she got a mattress on the floor next to our bed, where she'd spend part of the night, and then come in with us, snuggled up face-to-face with her Daddy until morning.

But yesterday, we took a big step:  we got her a real toddler bed and we moved it INTO HER ROOM! Cora's room at our new house has been a play room up until this point.  But now, it's her honest to goodness bedroom, and she couldn't be more thrilled.  (You may notice Cora's unusual shirt-wearing style in these photos: she was also learning to take off her shirt yesterday.)

We're not expecting any sudden or drastic miracles.  Last night she took a long time to get to sleep, and then slept in her room until midnight or so, when she came back in with us.  And I imagine it will take some time.  Our hope is obviously that she can sleep longer in her own bed and get used to being in her room. 

But this is our first real big step.  It feels exciting and a little scary too.  While I was having my own pangs yesterday realizing that I'd be going to sleep in a room without an easy-waking little goose in the corner, I suddenly didn't feel ready.

And I wasn't the only one, apparently.  Even Nick had his own moment of sadness, as he looked at the empty space in the corner of our room where her little mattress had been.

But it's time.  Right now my little girlie is snoozing away in her own little bed, having her mid-day repose.

I'm crossing our fingers for the three of us.

Mr. Sandman, an Update - 31 for 21

Sleep habits don't make for the most exciting blog posts.  Who really wants to hear about a baby keeping their parents up constantly?  Well, maybe other parents who are up a lot too.  It's nice to know that you're not alone when you're suffering from chronic sleep deprivation.  Especially when it seems like everyone else's child sleep through the night.

You may remember that Cora had major sleep problems.  She started off life as a great little sleeper, but I soon learned that it was because she was in heart failure and then healing from surgery. But don't think that this meant I slept much.  In addition to being a hormonal worried mess, I was pumping constantly, waking up several times at night to pump and feed the girl.

Once I ended my slavery to the pump, Cora began to wake up.  A lot.  We'd hear her breath get caught in her throat and her breathing stop.  Then she'd gasp and wake up.  Sometimes every 5 minutes all night long.  Partly because we wanted to and partly because we were scared to let our baby with apnea sleep alone, she slept with us and needed a lot of help to get back to sleep.  There were some really miserable times then. Times that Nick and I struggled and couldn't find a balance.

Then came her tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy.  It was rough with significant complications.  Way worse than I imagined. But, after the long healing process her apnea was much improved.  She no longer stopped breathing every few minutes.  Her sleep improved too, but she was still up quite a lot (read: every hour or so, rather than every few minutes.)

A sleep study in June showed mild apnea that didn't seem concerning since her O2 sats didn't really drop.  She got a cold that night too, so the sleep neurologist didn't feel she needed treatment.  It also officially diagnosed her with insomnia.  Oh joy!

She still doesn't sleep very well, but at this point it's behavioral.

Cora still sleeps with us.  I could make lots of excuses.  With her apnea there is no way I could have gotten up with her all night long if she weren't in our bed.  And then she got really clingy and attached to me and I thought it was a bad time to try to transition her out.  She's still clingy and attached.  A couple of weeks ago we finished night-weaning her for the second time.  So at least she's not nursing all night long.

Part of me loves having her sleep with us.  But there's another big part of me that can't wait to have my sleep back, my bed back; a little space in the night without my girlie constantly shimmying up next to me, waking up more easily when she touches me and still needing help getting back to sleep.  Cry-it-out won't work for me.  I couldn't do it.

An oldie pic of my girlie sleeping. Lightly.

So for now we're just living with it.  She is awake at least 5 times a night and needs significant help to get back to sleep.  She can't put herself back.  And she's often awake for an hour or more in the middle of the night.

I admit that it's getting old. But we've accepted that its' where we are right now.  We're not quite ready to take the steps that we'd need to to change things.  We're just keeping our fingers crossed that she grows out of it. I swear my fingers may just get stuck like this.

Over a year old, but a familiar face at night, nonetheless.

Oh, Mr. Sandman?

Have I mentioned lately that there's not a lot of sleeping going on around here?

I think I may have, once or twice.

Things came to a bit of a desperate head a few days ago, and after much pleading, Nick finally agreed that we could officially start taking shifts with the Bean to at least try and get half-nights of individual uninterrupted sleep.  So that was working well.  After a couple days of OK sleep I finally got a good night of sleep (because I went to bed so dang early, I got almost 7 hours of sleep before going into be awakened frequently for the next 3-4 hours.)  So yesterday I was feeling pretty darned good.

Then last night, I tucked myself in at the "late" hour of 9:30.  And looked at the clock until at least 3:30.  I tried reading.  I tried breathing and meditation exercises. I even tried to count sheep.  Why?!  Why?!  Then I settled in with Cora and actually slept, if you don't count all the wake-ups.

I know everyone deals with insomnia sometimes.  Some people deal with it all the time.  It's just that it seems that half my mental energy is directed at helping Cora to sleep better, so I feel so defeated when I can only blame my lack of sleep on me.

Not to say that I I'm never tempted to blame it on Cora.  But really, how can I?  She's 12 months old.  On a good night she wakes up only 8-10 times.  On a bad night it's more like 50 times.  Sometimes I just lie awake listening to her try to breathe, but then her breath gets stuck and she gasps for air, waking herself up.  The poor girl just needs to get some sleep.  She needs to help that little developing brain out.  But she can't, because a couple hours into her night, she just can't seem to stay asleep.

Do I sound a little manic?  A little desperate?  Actually, I feel a lot desperate. 

One thing I've noticed about becoming a mother is that whatever crisis you're dealing with, it feels like an enormously huge thing.  Like heart failure.  Or open heart surgery.  Or constipation.  Or congestion.  Or not sleeping.  You'd think that heart surgery would trump not sleeping, but right now not sleeping feels almost as bad.  Almost.

Well, now we're in full pursuit of some sleep help but there is a LONG wait to get in.  Dang it!  Why did I drag my feet about this for so long?  Now we have to wait until mid March to see the sleep neurologist.  We're seeing the ENT tomorrow, even though our pediatrician basically told us it would be a waste of time to do before seeing the neurologist.  But oh well.  We'll take what we can get.

OK, time to go get the little girl who just napped for a whopping 40 minutes.  Here's hoping tonight's a better night.

And, for sticking it out through this whine session of mine, how about a cute picture of Miss Beanie to take our minds off it all?

A bit blurry, but this shows how much she loves Baby Signing Time.  I wonder... how bad would it be to play our 4 discs over and over today?