In the wee small hours

Two things have happened since yesterday:

1. It's snowing AGAIN here, which I'm sure is some kind of cosmic retribution for my wearing white jeans to work yesterday. (Yes. I wore white skinny jeans--with black ruched leather flats and a royal blue peasant shirt--to work on January 28, because I'm a scofflaw.)

2. There's a really nice write-up of Ask Moxie by Allison Benedikt in a cool article about NYC bloggers in the Village Voice (venerable/venerated NYC free indie weekly): http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-01-26/news/i-blog-new-york-your-guide-to-gotham-s-lesser-known-best/9

OK, actually a lot more happened, including iPadGate, the State of the Union and analysis of it, and the fact that my kids actually fell asleep within ten minutes of going to bed. But what I want to talk about today is that bleak, creaky, sand-in-your-brain-gears, hot, searing feeling of being awake between the hours of 2 and 5 am with a child.

I can still feel it, that exact, horrifying, painful moment of being jerked awake when your body is supposed to be asleep, and I know you can, too, you fellow survivors. Sitting slumped in a rocking chair with someone you love but really don't want to see right now (but you're cherishing the moment!), thinking about other parents all over the world doing this exact same grueling, sacrificing, begrudging, joyful, resentful, numb act of love.

That moment when you twitch awake in the chair and feel the relief that you didn't drop the baby when you fell asleep, but you could have dropped the baby when you fell asleep.

Needing the coffee to be able to put on your clothes the next morning, but then having the kind of sick stomachache that comes from too much caffeine and not enough sleep.

The guilt of questioning why you did this, and wishing there was someone you could secretly tell ({[I don't know if I'd have done it if I'd known it would be like this...]})...

Wondering if it's All Your Fault, or merely all your fault, that your baby is awake this night, no different from any other night.

So. Those of you who are in the middle of this right now. Know that we know. We are not leaving you by the side of the road. But that we can't pull you along to safety. All we can do is try to leave the lights on so you can see the path we've worn, and you will use your own strong legs and good hearts and the illusion of courage that you put on every morning to get to the other side. And someday you, too, will be able to make jokes about consumer products or wonder why Chris Matthews is still allowed on TV and not feel like you're dying as you stand.

Lamentations from anyone in the middle of it? Beacons of hope or the sympathy of remembrance from anyone past it?

Comments

[Michelle]

Timely post for me today. I have been up since 3:30 am with my 10 month old. By the time I got him settled in back to sleep in his crib, my alarm clock went off and I had to get ready for work. Isn't that always the way? I also have a 20 month old son and between the two of them, I have not had a night with 8 hours sleep since May 2008! I am amazed sometimes at how little sleep I can function with. Although, I admit that I have fallen asleep at my desk during work. Do you promise there is an end to this? Really? I certainly hope so.

[Kathleen]

Thanks for this Moxie. I was up from 1-2am last night and then again at 5 with our 10 month old. And just from reading your post and seeing the first comment from Michelle (10 month old's are trouble, eh?)- I feel a bit better. Less alone, anyway.

It is so true that every time it happens we rack our brain trying to figure out why, in the desperate hope of avoiding it in the future. I need to just accept.

[Cloud]

Oh, it does end. My oldest finally started sleeping through the night not long after she turned two. She still wakes up occasionally wanting me to find her binky or socks or something, but most nights, she sleeps through.

And for anyone thinking that they are somehow to blame for their childrens' sleep patterns, I will say again what I've said here before. My first baby woke several times a night for almost a year, at which point we managed to get down to one or two wakings per night, and that lasted until she was two.

My second baby is only 4 months old, and has already gone through one period of sleeping through the night, and currently wakes up once to nurse.

My first baby needed lots of help to fall asleep, and still wants me to lay with her while she falls asleep.

My second baby falls asleep on her own within minutes of being put in her co-sleeper.

Our parenting methods are the same- a bedtime routine, white noise, nurse on demand, respond when the baby wakes up. Our two babies are just different.

I think all that we can do as parents is try not to create sleep problems, try to set up the environment most likely to promote happy sleep patterns. But we shouldn't blame ourselves if that doesn't work.

Yeah, dealing with a baby who is on a 24 hour schedule sucks at the time. Really, really sucks. But you do get through it. I think the key is to focus your efforts on solving the problem of YOUR sleep- i.e., concentrate on finding ways to get you the minimum sleep you need to function.

(Incidentally, I may have found the one advantage of a baby who nurse several times in the night. I had no trouble keeping up with the milk needs of my first baby when I went back to work. She drank about 15 ounces while I was away, and I easily pumped that out during the day. Baby #2 drinks almost 25 ounces while I am away, but I only pump out about 20. I've had to add an extra pumping session to try to keep up.)

[Jess]

It's party time at 3am with the 5 1/2 month old son. I keep reminding myself that he's just always been this way and it's just my new normal. Thankfully his 3 1/2 year old sister goes to bed well.

[lucee]

Since January 1 our 27 month old has been waking like a newborn; every two hours, not thirsty, not hungry, not scared; just awake. Then from 3-5am he has been awake and just lying looking at the ceiling, thinking, but needs to be doing this with one of us, there. Luckily for me my husband has been obliging here lately, as he was away for most of it early in the month.
Having gone through this at 18 months, it just has be endured. It will end. His vocab has tripled in this time, so it must be big developmental leap. Sucks, I hate it but It Will End.

[Patricia]

What a kind and thoughtful post, Moxie. The sleep issue is probably the one that got me hooked to askmoxie when my little girl, now 4, was *still* waking up every night at around 1 year old and I was convinced we were doing something terribly wrong. And I was exhausted. So yes, I still remember and want all of you who are going through that to know that there is NOTHING wrong with you and/or your baby! And thank you, Moxie, for providing this space for us to find insight and support.

[blue]

Oh, Mox! Where did you come from and what did we ever do to deserve you?

It really is like "dying as you stand" and I remember it so, so clearly! I am, thankfully, among the living on the other end of the tunnel, but just barely. And yet by boy of 15 months was awake (uncharacteristically) from 2-3 last night for no good reason. Is it something in the air? Teeth? Growth spurt? Could this really already be the beginning of the 18 month sleep regression?!?!??!!!

Anyway, for those of you in the thick of it: hang on, breathe, DO drink coffee, don't forget to eat a little now and then and get some fresh air on your face at least once a day.

Thanks, Moxie, for your candid and informed approach. It's good to have you back on a regular basis. You are a poet and all I want to know is, when is your first book coming out?

[Maura]

Oh, how very timely. I believe I referred to my 1 month old at 4am last night as, "that little bastard." I know (from experience with our first) that we all sleep better with no co-sleeping....but at least we sleep with co-sleeping. I'm almost ready to just give in and let him sleep hooked up to me.

[Arwen]

Moxie, I read this and wondered if you have some sort of nannycam in our house. And in my brain, right now.

We're in the process of night-weaning our twelve-month-old and oh, it is so hellish. We've worked out the best possible division of labor so that my husband and I can each get some sleep at the times at which sleep is most productive for us (evening for him, morning for me). But I'm on duty at 2am and it is so, so awful. This kid has been killing us with his sleep for the past four months or so (two-hour-long nighttime wakeups, several times a week). He's also just on the cusp of walking and I trust that things are going to get better once he makes that developmental leap, but still. Sometimes at 2am I just want to sink into the floor and cry.

Thanks for leaving the light on! Since this is our second child (first didn't sleep through the night until 22mos) I know that it will get better eventually, but it's hard to remember when we're in the middle of it.

[paola]

I think it's over. Well, I HOPE it's over, but we still have 3.5 years old coming up soon and if it's equally bad or any worse than 2.5, well I'll have some more crap sleep and sleeplessness to deal with.

Oh and I don't want to be the prophet of doom here, but if it hasn't happened already, it don't mean it aint ever going to happen ( even if your kid is 18 months old.) No. 2 started waking up all hours when she was 20 months. I had 14 months of her waking up sometimes 8 times a night and she was the kid that slept 12 hours nights at 6 weeks!

[Kelly]

Oh how I've been there! I'm sorry for those of you who are, but you'll do it and it'll be over soon. Not soon enough, but soon.

One of the good things about 2yr olds, for the most part? The reference/name is wrong. They should be called the "Terrible-Two's-WHO-SLEEP-THROUGH-THE-NIGHT*" (most of the time).

[Erica]

Oh goodness, talk about timely! My nearly-2 year old son had just gotten into a decent sleeping pattern when the fever hit for a couple days. Argh! Up a couple times during the night, wanting to nurse......it all just threw me over the edge again, with the guilt not making anything better.

I'm sure I'll be smited (smoted? smoten?) for this, but it seemed like he got himself back on track in terms of sleep last night. Is he growing up? Can I be that hopeful?

[Raia]

I'm not at this stage right now, but this is a beautiful post. I will have to figure out how to make sure I reread it when the next baby comes along. This captures that middle of the night feeling perfectly.

[Jackie]

Oh my gosh, Moxie. Reading your post conjures such painful times that it practically brought tears to my eyes. Our twins are two and a half now. We feel incredibly thankful that we were finally able to generally get something resembling a normal night's sleep around maybe 16 or 18 months.
After I went back to work at 3 months, I was SO sleep deprived, that EVERY morning when I'd get behind the wheel to head to work, I would literally utter a prayer to G-d to ask Him to please help me that I shouldn't hurt myself or any other drivers.

Now my husband is making noises about having a third baby. It's horrible, but the only thing I can think about with having a third is going back to that year of complete and utter sleep deprivation.

{{Hugs}} to all those women currently going through it. I think the only way I made it through some days was just by saying, "One more day, one more hour, one foot in front of the other".

[Raia]

Actually, that was pretty naive of me to think we won't be doing this middle of the night thing until another baby comes. As paola pointed out, we're not out of the woods on the first baby. So easy to think sleep patterns are linear and only get better over time, when we all know they can get better, worse, MUCH worse and then better again....Thanks for the dose of reality, paola, as that will help me appreciate our current good luck of all night sleeping.

[Susan]

Yes. It sucks. You are not alone, ladies. I have to say, now that my baby is on the bottle and not the breast, it's much harder to soothe him in the middle of the night. Endless rocking is so awful. My husband and I have vowed to get a rocking recliner for the nursery with the next kid.

[Diane Stenglein]

Thank you so much! It doesn't make it any easier, but it's nice to hear the stories just the same.

I fed the 4 1/2 month old at 11, 1 and 3 last night.

[MrsHaley]

I never even actually GOT to sleep last night until about 3 am because I was running between the 16-month-old with pinkeye, an ear infection and 3 new molars (Tylenol! Amoxicillin! Eyedrops! Repeat!), then across the hall to the bathroom to cling to the throne with a rocket-propelled case of the runs. I ate something RANCID, y'all. I couldn't get him sufficiently settled to fall asleep because I kept having to unceremoniously dump him in his crib to fling myself at the toilet. Let's pause for a moment and picture it: the poor child screeeeching in pain and abandonment in the other room, while my every organ liquifies and is ejected from my body at mach-9.

I am, like, WEAK I am so tired today. The 3-year-old has no sympathy, however. No sympathy and no 'OFF' button.

And (whine) I scrubbed those upstairs toilets yesterday and now I have to do it again today because I KILLED them. I HATE that chore.

Aren't you glad you asked, Moxie?

[Tamar]

That period of the baby waking up constantly nearly broke me. (At 2+ he still gets up all the time, but it's nothing like the early days.) But here's the thing. Those nights, that time - honestly, it was there that I became a mother. It was there that I learned to reach way deeper than I thought possible and pull up more love and patience and hope and enthusiasm than I knew to exist. Sometimes I would hear the cry and feel complete rage, but by the time I picked up my baby, I was overcome by love. I never would have believed it if I hadn't lived it, the intensity of those feeling crushed up one against the other. I think that experience made me extremely close with my child - a very real knowledge that I had given him my utmost, and that I always have more of that to give.

[blue]

@MrsHaley,
At your expense, I have laughed heartily at your descriptive writing. Sometimes the best way to get through times like that is knowing what a great story it will make when it's over.

Thanks and sorry.... Hope you get a nap today.

[theklamsays]

Tamar, that was so beautifully said. I couldn't agree more.

[Jackie]

How timely - my 14 month old still wakes several times a night, sometimes just needs his binky, sometimes is wide awake and then comes and tosses and turns in our bed for an hour or two before (finally) dropping back off. I spent most of his first year a zombie (he was up every 2 hours until he was 10 mos old), and just when it started getting better (many nights getting at least a 4 or 5 hour chunk of sleep) I am pregnant again, and now I am SO TIRED ALL THE TIME. I know, mainly from reading your site, that it will get better, but sometimes it is really really hard.

So nice to be able to have a place to write this all and have people understand.

[Jackie]

Oh Mrs Hayley - thank you for sharing. Hilarious and awful all at the same time. Scrubbing toilets is the worst.

[elizabeth]

Timely!! This is exactly what brought me here so I guess there is that silver lining.
We are currently going through two molars coming in at 16 mts and we are awake several hours in the middle of the night, last night hourly from 10-2ish then he slept till 5. Its amazing when 3 hours of sleep seems like a lot.
We saw slight improvement before the molars started to cut so I'm hopeful that we might get there in a couple of weeks. Till then its by what ever means necessary... I try to be gentle with myself but I spend a lot of time plotting and trying to figure out what I can do differently and how to get him to sleep through the night. I'm tired of thinking about it and talking about it but strangely I can't seem to even when my husband asks to talk about something else. When your in it, its all consuming!
Thanks for the post Moxie, feels like your back:)

[Elizabeth]

I'm in the thick of a brutal cold: Round 1 was the 3 year old last weekend, now it's the baby and the husband, with Bonus Round: the nanny's sick, too! I think only desperation is keeping me healthy.

As I've been getting up to try to soothe a baby who can't breathe and therefor can't eat, rocking in the dark, I do think of how many thousands of other parents are up with us, too. It's cold comfort, but that's better than none. I think the joy of subsequent children is the knowledge that this, too, shall pass.

[Slim]

OK, when are we all moving in together in some salty mama commune? Someone needs to clean Mrs Haley's toilet, but it shouldn't be her.

[Cloud]

@MrsHaley- if ever there was a time for your husband to clean your toilets, this is sure it!

@Paola- I'm sticking my fingers in my ears (eyes?) and not listening. I'm pretending that baby #2 will always be a good sleeper!

[caramama]

For me, it's the hours between 11:00 and 2:00 that kill me. I'm in the deepest sleep then, and it's so freaking hard to drag my butt out of bed to get the baby.

But we survived it with my daughter, and we'll survive it with my son. And I'm super thankful that he's now regularly sleeping longer than 2 hours in a row--usually 3 to 3.5!

@Susan - The glider that also is a recliner has saved my sanity! I'm SO glad we got it!

[Irene]

My little girl, age 22 months, is the most wonderful amazing sweet beautiful creature ever to walk the earth....

And when I have to get up at 3am to sit with her in a damn uncomfortable rocking chair, I make up gruesome lullabies in my head about how I will chop her into pieces and feed her to our cats if she doesn't go back to sleep soon, or if I'm too numb to feel creative, I simply repeat the Her Bad Mother mantra: "fuck I hate this, fuck I hate this, fuck I hate this."

[Jamie LaRose]

Thank You Moxie! Your eloquent words are hitting just the right nerves today. My 5 month old is waking up every hour in half staring at 1:00 PM every night. I'm so in love with her & can't imagine ever being angry with her, but it's so hard to stay calm & sane after getting no sleep. Thanks for letting me know that it does get better.

[hush]

I'm so glad you all keep it real. @MrsHaley, I am laughing at your nasty imagery there & hope you feel better soon!!

It seems to me that there are way too many people out there who say their kids always sleep through the night. They're just lying liars who lie, right? Right?? Because mine (27 mos & 3.5 mos) sure as hell do not!

[Peasy's mom]

Echoing other posters, this is both beautiful and timely. It is so nice to be reminded that I have company, especially since I've decided to stop complaining nightly on Facebook!

My daughter is 2.5+, and while we're in a better place than we were (some weeks, we get 5-7 nights of uninterrupted sleep), we're still not all the way there (some weeks we get 0 nights of uninterrupted sleep, and we've been lulled in the the false hope that that was over). This is compounded by the fact that even when my toddler daughter does sleep, my senior dog has decided that it's a good idea routinely to get up at 5am (and he won't let anyone near him sleep once he's awake). I've been trying to accept that we are where we are and to remember that it will get better, but it's comforting just to complain a little, so thanks for that.

@Mrs. Haley: So sorry! I've been there once or twice, and it ain't fun. Hope you feel better today.

[Amber]

"The guilt of questioning why you did this, and wishing there was someone you could secretly tell ({[I don't know if I'd have done it if I'd known it would be like this...]})..." <~~~~~~~~~~ THIS THIS THIS

We're approaching the 1 year mark and my daughter still doesn't show ANY signs of sleeping "through the night". She nurses ALL night long. We co-sleep, so yes...I get more sleep...but NOT quality sleep. I'm sore, tired, cranky (I actually just wrote about this yesterday...ha).

I can, kinda sorta, see the light at the end. Keep shining it at me PLEASE! We're planning to start the weaning processes on her first birthday, and then **fingers crossed** she'll start sleeping longer. Because, as it stands now, she uses me as a pacifier and has no idea how to comfort herself back to sleep.

Any tricks or tips? Because I'm afraid that I'm about to, willing, lose my ONE trick :-/

[Sherry H.]

thanks for putting that into words Tamar. beautiful. and also to Moxie, well said.

every night i plea with my boyfriend to have just an hour, let me sleep for an hour without my 8 month old baby and then bring her in to me. sleeping next to her while she nurses on and off is damned uncomfortable, my back is twisted and achy each morning. and cold, she kicks the covers down and leaves my top half exposed. and precarious, i get squished to the outer outer edge of the bed.

we've learned to give her a bottle to zonk her out, she nurses less and i can turn my back to her and relax a little more into sleep. ahhhh sleep.

[Bella]

GREAT post, Moxie. And what a great write-up in the newspaper! This space was so aptly described as:
"Ask Moxie—a beacon of non-judgmental, un-dogmatic parenting advice, neutral territory in an exhausting and endless cycle of online mommy war violence." LOVE it.

As for the wee hours, man oh man do I remember them with my twin boys (for some reason my dear husband has drawn a blank mostly). NOTHING compared to the physical torture combined with the psychological, self-inflicted guilt torture when I felt I couldn't do it anymore (how dare I complain? After doing so much to get my precious babies and finally being one of the lucky ones?!). And nothing compared to the pure loneliness I felt when I looked outside at the dark 4 am morning. But there was literally ONE thing that got me through (well, ok, my mom helped a lot too): I would read this blog. And I would literally imagine that the woman in the house behind mine with the light also, who I knew had a new baby also, was reading this blog. And that she and I knew the same things, were feeling the same level of torture and love in the same instant. It's making me tear up now, how freaking MUCH that feeling of connection meant -- it felt like the only tether to sanity that I had sometimes.

And then just like THAT... it's done. They sleep. Sooner or later, they really, really do.

[mom2boys]

@Tamar - Yes, exactly! I will never forget standing there at 3 a.m. on what felt like the 100th night of standing there totally exhausted and in love and amazed at myself and him and the world as a whole.

Two year old molars can bite me. As if being two isn't hard enough with all that's going on for them they have to cut giant, slow moving teeth, too?? Poor kid woke up screaming with a burning hot cheek saying he needed a band-aid. Wouldn't take tylenol or orajel - insisted on putting a band-aid on the side of his face as he said "it hurts really, really bad mommy" at yes, 3 in the morning. So sweet and so sad to look down at the finally back to sleep boy with a scooby doo band-aid on his cheek.

@Mrs. Haley - Too funny! (For us, not you) Thanks for giving me a good laugh today.

[SarcastiCarrie]

I've said it before and I will say it again. Someday, I will exact my revenge.

About 1.5 hours after they get home from an all-night lock-in, I will stroll into the room, "Hi boys! It's mom. I was just thinking about how my sock fell off in the living room and I was hoping you coud help me look for it. No? OK then, I can do it myself. See you soon."

At 6 am Sunday morning when they are in college, "Hi, it's Mom! I'm doing really well but Dad and I got up because we're thirsty and had to go to the bathroom, and I just thought you should know." And I can only assume that when my kids are college, the bluetooth will be installed in teh brain and they won't be able to ignore me.

I will call at 3 am shortly after they've brought their own babies home, and say, "Oh, are you home? Of course you're home, you have a new baby. I just wanted to know you were still there. If there's anything you need, you let me know, kthxbainow." I assume at this point, they will disown me.

[theklamsays]

I want to mention, for those who are planning to night wean in an effort to improve sleep: if it is not successful, don't give up. Give it some time, and then try again. We tried to night wean at 12 months and it was a DISASTER. Total, complete disaster. Tried again at 15 months and it went relatively smoothly (and did coincide with our little guy suddenly sleeping much much better - though not sure if it was the night weaning or just the stage he was at, or a combination of the two). Of course it all went to hell at 18 months, but at least we were somewhat recharged from the (mostly) sleeping through the night from 15 to 18 months.

[Jessica]

Oh man, I'm in tears. I've been trying to sleep-train/night-wean my 13-month-old after 13 months of (literally) not getting more than 3 hours of sleep in a row before the next wakeup call. It's... er... not working. He was getting better, then was getting worse... then was getting better... then worse. He still nurses like a newborn! I wanted to die last night. Not literally. I thought I would, though, lying on the floor nursing him for the 4th time in as many hours, hoping he'd sleep for another hour before I had to get up again. I got his brother (39 months) sleeping through the night aroudn 16 months. I guess I can hold on a little longer. But his brother didn't nurse, and hadn't taken food at night since 4 months.

This is all new. Every kid is new again. I don't mind so much when they're newborns. Newborns are supposed to do that. But after 12 months, I have far less patience (probably from, you know, all the sleep deprivation). And how is it that the 3-year-old manages to find the one 3-hour block of time that the baby is sleeping to decide to come wake us up in the middle of it? It's uncanny!

[Kate]

We just came through the fire of the 9 month sleep regression....and, oh man, I really didn't think i would live through it. I would actually sit and tell my husband that I wasn't going to make it this time. I was failing at work, I can't live with no sleep! And, as always, as soon as I decided I couldn't handle it anymore...she slept. And has now for 5 nights straight. I know enough at this point to not get too excited, because you never know when the next wave of sleeplessness will hit. But man, it's so sweet when they sleep.

[amom]

I guess there is no better testimony that there is an end to the sleeplessness, than the fact that we are getting ready to do it again. I hardly remember months 0-4 when I never got more than 3 hours of sleep at a stretch. Months 4-6 are also a bit fuzzy, though I know that was my breaking point as the little man never slept more than 1.5 hour at a time. But somewhere around 9 months he got with the program, and by a year I was starting to feel human again. Now, as a 3 year old he hardly ever needs us at night. I pray that it continues after we bring our new little one home...

[Rachel Barenblat]

My son turned 2 months old today, and oh my God, this post describes everything I've been feeling, night after night. Thank you for giving words to it.

fwiw, I wrote my own version of this story here: http://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/2010/01/another-mother-poem-besieged.html

Anyway, thank you for this. So much.

[Cloud]

@SarcastiCarrie- I have the same fantasy. I'm calling Pumpkin at 5 a.m. when she's in college, and telling her I lost my sock.

For those trying nightweaning- I second the advice about sometimes it works best to just give up and try again in a few weeks. I also found that the typical nurse a little less at a time each night method just did not work for us. What worked was waiting longer before nursing. I think I got the method here (where else?), but for anyone who's interested, I wrote up the experience at the time:
http://wandsci.blogspot.com/2008/01/nightweaning.html

In looking for that post, I just noticed that Pumpkin un-nightweaned herself at about a year, and that we finally completely nightweaned at about 21 months. So yeah, sleep is not a linear thing.

[caramama]

@Amber and Sherry H. - We were going through the same thing, and I was at my end. After trying some things out, we realized that the baby is really hungy during the night, but since we were both falling back asleep (co-sleeping) while he was feeding, he wasn't filling his stomach up. So we moved him into his crib in the nursery and I get up 2-3 times a night to nurse him while sitting in the glider. Even though I am physically getting out of bed more, it's working better for us because I'm making sure he's eating enough at each sitting, and he doesn't need to nurse all night long. Just putting out there what we did. YMMV, and you might not want to do anything like that. But I'm finally getting better quality sleep and slightly bigger chunks of sleep.

[Elaine]

Yes, so timely.

The dreaded 18 month sleep regression hit in December, the same time his 6 week long food strike hit. And he figured how to do a head-first fall out of his crib. So now we're also dealing with the toddler bed transition, a kid that is drunk with freedom and our first major power struggle. No one is sleeping much. But wait, there's more. Last week he came down with the flu and we had to experience the heart-breaking scenario where we have to restrain him to give him some medicine because we've got to find a way to rehydrate him and this is better than a trip to the hospital and an IV bag - but there is no way to make him understand that. Got through that then we realize that his bottom two year molars are coming in and they are causing him WAY more pain than anything we experienced when he got the previous 12 teeth (in 10 months, btw). Inconsolable screaming - fluctuating wildly between "hold me" and "don't touch me".

But wait, there's more. I just had another birthday and we are getting down to crunch time - are we or aren't we going to have another? If I'm not pregnant again by my next birthday, then we probably won't. Even though I really value my siblings and I really want that for my son. If I could fast forward to the point that another baby would be getting 4 - 6 hours of sleep consecutively even half of the time, I believe I would take the plunge again. But right now, I'm too tired to discuss it.

[farare]

"Dying as you stand" is awfullly apt. I recall, when I felt like that and my life was falling apart, someone saying, do you think that you could take a multivitamin, and I thought that yes, I could do that. I couldn't actually do anything more than that to convince myself that there was something beyond this eternal moment of horror, but I could do that.

[Meghan]

Oh Moxie, thank you. I forget, in the middle of the night, that so many other moms are unwillingly awake, trying not to be angry at this beautiful baby they love more than anything. I try to tell myself that when I said I'd do anything for my kids, not sleeping was included. I can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel with my 9-month-old, but I'm afraid to say too much. I don't want to jinx it!

[Nancy]

A friend posted your link on Facebook and as many of the others have said, I totally understand. My maternity leave ends on Monday and I'm trying to get myself & my 3 month old twins into a routine for returning to work Monday morning. This doesn't happen often, but last nighht they woke up one right after the other at 1:45 am. I didn't finish feeding and get back to sleep until 3 am. I was supposed to wake at 5, but had set my alarm for 5 pm. I didn't wake until 6:15 and had I needed to work today, would have been late. I feel like a failure that I ruined the schedule. But yes, I do try to cherish these times even when I can't keep my eyes open and I'm mad at my daughter for eating too slowly or my son screaming at the top of his lungs directly in my ear while I'm trying to burp him. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

[Lynnette]

We're in the midst of transferring from a co-sleeper to a crib, and, well, hmmmm. It's kicking our collective asses. My 5.5 month old is sweet as can be, but is a wakeful little thing. I can still feel the love at 3am, but only because she strokes me with her soft little hand as she tries NOT to fall asleep. I would have Mr. Lynnette handle it, but baby girl is entirely enamored of his presence and will steadfastly refuse to go to sleep if Daddy is around to play with.

It's a phase... it will pass, it's a phase... it will pass... zzzzzzz.

[Erin]

I am SO THERE, Moxie. In the seemingly-never-ending 18 month sleep regression that is coinciding with my second, very miserable pregnancy (never ending, crippling nausea). He gets up multiple times a night, or ping! 4 AM every morning and will. not. go. back. to. sleep. 4 Am has been my new wake up time for three months now though lately he's been doing better about sleeping through the night. I'm sure he'll get over it - just in time for #2 to be born! I guess the upside is that I won't get used to sleeping again before the baby? At least when the baby gets here I can caffeine my woes away! (My awesome mother bought my a Bialetti cappuchino maker for my baby shower with #1 - she said she thought i deserved something all for me at the shower, and it has SAVED MY LIFE, though alas of course now I can't drink coffee.)

The hardest part about the nights is not being tired the next day, it's that I'm so bad at nights - after the third wake up call or failed attempt to get him to sleep, sometimes I feel like I"m going to just lose it, and i get so angry at him, which is completely ridiculous.
(sorry if I double-posted - my computer was freaking out)