It's been almost two weeks. Adam comes into the bedroom at around 2 and says something like, "I'm sorry, but I have to go to sleep." I get up and go deal with the screaming demon seed we used to call our sweet baby.
I sit in the rocking chair that we both hate but we don't replace because the Bentwood rocker we want is too expensive and I rock. My back hurts and I rock. My arm cramps and I rock. I change a diaper thinking maybe he pooped? And I rock. I think about Adam asleep in the bed and I rock. I get REALLY PISSED OFF and I rock. A couple of times I will try to lay him own because he seems to have been asleep for a while and he will wake up screaming again. Sometimes I pick him up and sometimes I have to just go hide in the bathroom for a bit. Then… I rock. I cry and I rock.
We have been to the pediatrician. He's on a new formula and Prevacid and probiotics. It's all supposed to start helping within two weeks. HA!
We have read all the books. ALL THE BOOKS. We should be keeping him up during the day, but we should be making sure he gets good naps during the day. We should be following his lead but we should be sticking to a schedule. We should have a nighttime routine that starts at a predictable time but it should be 90 minutes or 3 hours after his last nap. There should not be anything in the crib but it should be a cozy nest for him to sleep in. He shouldn't be sleeping swaddled anymore but he should stay swaddled until he weans himself.
I AM SO DONE. None of these people know what they're talking about and none of them have been able to help us. I'm tired of hearing about other babies who sleep for 5 or 6 hours or even longer each night. I'm tired of reading book after book that will tell me how to get my baby to sleep. You know how my baby sleeps? When one of us is rocking him. That's it. That's all. He will nap during the day. He will nap like a champ. Every 2 or 3 hours he goes down for an hour. As soon as it's nighttime he's just done. He doesn't have his days and nights mixed up - he'll go down for about an hour or two after his bath. Then… all bets are off.
I go to bed at 8 so I can get up at 2. Adam goes to bed at 2 so he can get up at 7. Our lives revolve around trying to get any tiny bit of sleep that we can. Our brains are barely functioning and everything is hard and confusing.
Still…
I can feel the difference between this and the depression. I hurt, but the pain doesn't radiate from my core the way it used to. The anger and hurt aren't deep in my bones the way they were. The fear and the wish that it could all just be over have faded. I want to live. I'm sure of that now. Even through all this I want to live. Even if it's only to pay him back by waking him up super early EVERY DAY during his teenage years…that's a start, right?