Point: Daddy

 

You'll have to pardon the loosely veiled profanity... but admit it - as a parent, you can't help but laugh at that!

So, just when I thought we were starting to make some progress with the nighttime fussies, last night happened. Ugh. For a few nights in a row, he required very minimal intervention on my part - he was only waking up about twice, and was getting much better about self-soothing. One night I never had to pick him up at all, and the next night I only picked him up once and he went right back down with no trouble. Last night, he was up from 2 til 3:30. On the positive side, he didn't wake up at all until 2, and he almost always wakes up sometime between midnight and 1am in addition to the dreaded 2-3am crazy-time. But when he did wake up, he was up - bright eyed and smiling at me. That's never a good sign at 2am.

I tried holding his hands near his mouth for a while so that he could suck on his fingers, which is his typical sleepy-time routine. I tried for about a half hour, during which time he'd occasionally find a finger or two and suck for a few seconds, but mostly just fussed and cried. I finally picked him up around 2:30, but he really didn't have any interest in laying on my chest and going back to sleep by that point. We fought like that for a few minutes before I got up out of bed and walked him around a little until he finally laid his head on my shoulder, and then we rocked back to sleep for a few minutes. By 2:45 he was back in his bassinet, and by 2:45:05 he was wide awake and crying. Again, I tried offering his fingers but now he was just plain TICKED and wouldn't even let me hold his hand near his face. Obviously if he's exerting himself to physically fight against me he's not going to do any "soothing", so I didn't bother with that for very long, and picked him up again. This time he was happy to fall asleep on my chest just sitting in the bed. I laid there for a good 10 minutes to make sure he was really out this time, laid him down again, and of course he was awake before he even hit the mattress. We repeated the futile attempt at offering the fingers through plenty of screeching, I picked him up and put him back to sleep, and for a third time he immediately woke up when I attempted to lay him down. This time I tried to just let him lay there and cry for a few minutes. I was fresh out of ideas. After about 5 minutes I picked him up (at which point he immediately stopped crying), sat him in my lap to calm down for a minute, and laid him back down again, knowing full well that he'd start up again (and he didn't disappoint). Again, I let him cry for a few minutes, at which point Ben finally decided to try his hand at baby whispering. It took him a few minutes to get the baby calmed down, and then he rocked him for about 15 minutes (and mommy took a little cat nap!). That was his last hurrah... when Ben finally laid him down again he stayed asleep, and slept until his typical early-morning feeding time around 5:30. 

Usually this madness lasts for about an hour, so last night was an exceptionally long battle. Usually Ben doesn't ever have to step in, and at some point I just lay him down and he doesn't wake up again. You could argue that Ben putting him to sleep made the difference in him waking up again versus staying asleep last night, but every other night leading up to this he has eventually fallen asleep for good for me (and in less time). What is it that finally causes him to stay asleep?! I'd really love to know. Maybe he just tires himself out with all the fussing... though I really hope that's not it, because that means that he just has to fuss for an hour every night in order to get sleepy enough to stay asleep. That's not a solution. Maybe we should try having Ben put him to sleep the first time he wakes up and see if he does any better...? I hate to make that kind of interruption to his sleep a nightly routine, but maybe if we do that for a few nights in a row he'll eventually stop waking up altogether...? One can dream, right?! 

I probably shouldn't get so down on myself about having Ben help out at night. I know that he doesn't prefer to be up in the middle of the night when he has to get up for work at 6am, but I also know that he wants me to ask for help if I need it and doesn't want me to feel alone and frustrated. We're both Eli's parents, and sometimes it takes two to wrangle an infant! I just feel so blessed to have the opportunity to be at home with Eli, and that blessing is made possible in large part by the fact that Ben works so hard to hold down a well-paying job. It makes me want to do what I can to support him in that, by making sure that he is well-fed, well-rested, and ready to face the work day each and every day. I've worked plenty, and I know it's not always easy to get up and go every day, particularly when you're exhausted (like the entire first third and final third of my pregnancy)!

I suppose I should just take this as an opportunity to marvel at just how lucky I am, not only to be able to stay home with my baby for 10 months, but to have the kind of husband who wants to be there for me in every aspect of our life together - even when it means giving up something as precious to him as sleep (and if you know him, you know how precious that is)! I didn't even have to ask him last night. I just looked at him and apologized for his being kept awake and said that I was out of ideas so I was trying to let the baby cry for a little while and see if he'd eventually doze off, and he just said "I'll try" and got right up. He even came back to bed laughing about how badly he'd had to cough after the baby had fallen asleep on him and the sheer will power it had taken to hold it back! I just love that man. Love love love <3 He gets one point in the battle of the nighttime fussies, and a zillion points in the Book of Mommy :)