Tuesday, March 20, 2012

4 Months Of This Is Enough

Little Miss Avery will be getting a shock this evening, as mama has determined it is now time to sleep-train. This decision was made with much scientific exploration and brouhaha; primarily of note is the fact that mama is effectively sick of this no-sleep crap.

In all honesty, I shouldn’t complain. While her initial 10 weeks of sleep were absolutely horrendous, Ave has of late been an average-to-decent sleeper and compared to her brother at the same age, she’s an angel. However, there is something different to the equation this time:

I’m a hell of a lot more tired this go-around.

Blame it on my advanced maternal age, blame it on the fact that having a toddler means “sleeping in” is 7:30am, I’m just bagged. Done. Exhausted and worn down. As the French like to say “Feeling like a pile of le poo-poo de la chien” (and if you’re going to tell me that I conjugated that incorrectly, I’m going to tell you that at least I remembered what the word “conjugated” means. I think.). 

Here’s a snapshot of my current night-time ritual:

7:15 pm – Avery in bed for the night. Yes!! One down, one to go … I can almost see the couch from here. I smile jubilantly.

8:15 pm – Mason in bed for the night. Freedom!!! Jamie & I commence joyous celebration.

8:15:30 pm – Mason’s night-time stalling/crying/screaming shenanigans begin. My slamming-my-head-against-the-wall-because-I’m-so-damned-frustrated-why-won’t-you-just-go-to-sleep physical exercise begins.

9:30 pm – Mason finally asleep. I should go to bed at this time, but don’t. I’m not my grandma, for god’s sake. 
 
10:45 pm – Reminder to Jamie to bottle-feed Avery as I head to bed. Jamie, as always, has forgotten about this and begins swearing loudly.

11:15 pm – Avery bottle fed, all 4 people in house finally asleep.

1:30 am – Wake up to Mason screaming/crying loudly. Jamie pretends to be sleeping. Stumble to Mason’s room where he tells me “I wanna have Lightning on my pillow”. Lightning McQueen is currently laying beside his pillow. Try my best to remember that he is only 2.5 years old as I slam the damn car down and storm back to bed.

2:30 am – Avery wakes and begins her loud version of “Mom, where arrrrrrre yooooooooooo?” from her room.

2:45 am –  Finally give in and drag myself out of bed. Nursing and ipad-viewing commence.

3:00 am – Avery is finished nursing.This goes unnoticed because I’m reading Pinterest post about how to repurpose toilet paper rolls.

3:30 am – Determined to feed my family excessive amounts of fibre to increase our toilet-paper-roll output, I put Avery in her crib and head to bed. I just know she’s going to sleep until 7am, because it was such a great feed.

4:45 am – Avery wakes.

5:00 am – Stumble to Ave’s room after determining that she’s “for reals”. She is wide-awake, smiling, and thrilled to have company. Is it wrong to consider bitch-slapping your daughter?

5:15 am – Avery vomits entire contents of meal over my shoulder as I am burping her. Nursing 2.0 begins again.

5:30 am – Back in bed, smelling like vomit. Have brief deja vu of my early 20s. Jamie is World’s Heaviest Sleeper. “Accidentally” brush my ice-cold feet against his leg. I feel better.

6:25 am – Avery begins crying again. Shut off monitor and put head under the pillow.

7:00 am – Mason wakes. Starts yelling “Moooommmmm, come and get me!!! Moommmmmmmm??!! Hello?! Anybody hooommmmme?!” in as loud a voice as possible. He is next on my bitch-slapping list, right behind Jamie who is complaining about how little sleep he got last night.

Ugggggghhhhhh. I would kill to have a straight sleep-through to 6am. Or to just be able to crash as easily as Mason does for his naps:
DSC_0737 copy.jpgsmall
Seriously. Who sleeps that heavily? Its like he’s flaunting it in my face.

Photobucket

8 comments:

  1. good luck - I have done sleep training with both my kids at different periods....My 4 yr old STILL wakes 1x night, but normally just for a crawl into our bed....and the 18mth old is hit and miss. Some nights he will wake (which he nurses and falls back to sleep within 3 minutes) and other nights (more common) he STTN.....

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good luck. Hope the first night goes well!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I can't wait to hear how it goes. A-WOWW is KILLING me over here. The only thing that is keeping me from sleep training is that her crying will wake 3 other little kids, and then I will get even. less. sleep. How is that possible?????

    ReplyDelete
  4. You're hilarious.
    Good luck with the sleep training. When we did it with my son I found it easier than anticipated.

    Side question: do you remember the paint colour of Avery's room? I was thinking about a grey room and really like the colour you used. TIA.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I totally remember the name (and sorry for the late reply but we've been, you know, sleep training). It's by Behr, and is called Elephant Skin. Not sure why that little tidbit of information stuck in my head but it did!

      Delete
  5. Hilarious. And so truthful! How did it go?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's going! I'll be updating with a post about it soon ...

      Delete

Related Posts with Thumbnails