Sunday, March 07, 2010

Small blessings

A week or two ago, I was feeling truly desperate from lack of sleep. Dio was waking up even more than usual, sometimes every hour and a half. And I didn't feel much hope for the near (or semi-near) future, since Zari woke up every 2-3 hours at night until she was 20 months old.

And then this week, out of the blue, Dio started sleeping 5-hour stretches at night, sometimes even twice in a row. Take last night: He went to bed at 7 pm and started fussing around 10:30 pm (his usual time to wake up). We let him cry for a few minutes to see if he'd fall back asleep. He did. He woke up a bit after midnight, came into bed with me, and nursed back to sleep. And then we both slept until 5 am! I nursed him again and then had to use a bit of coaxing to get him back to sleep. He woke up for the morning a bit before 7 am.

It was not the world's best sleep, but having that one 5-hour stretch was wonderful. For those of you who have been in my shoes, you know how nice that feels

And an extra bonus--Dio woke up this morning completely dry. A first for him!

8 comments:

  1. Your post has made me feel so optimistic...my son is about two months younger than Dio and I love reading about Dio's world as it seems to resemble Fin's so closely. Fin is in the midst of nighttime feeding frenzies - sometimes I think he hasn't let go all night, despite me drifting in and out of sleep. It's great to know that there may be a light at the end of the tunnel!

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  2. You are a wonderful woman and I so enjoy reading your blog. I am no longer breastfeeding my daughter (15 months) but reading your blog makes me miss those days already. Mine still wakes up for a bottle at night at 15 months, every 3 or 4 hours, and most definitely isn't dry. That's impressive!!!

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  3. Oh, that is wonderful! My first was like that and it is so discouraging and exhausting and mind-numbing to lose so much sleep for so long.

    Hurrah!

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  4. I think I posted this too soon--last night was probably THE worst we've had with him ever. Sigh...yawn...

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  5. I went through this with my daughter. I am still going through it, but it is not nearly as bad as it used to be. At one point, I simply could not function. I decided I had to do something. I could not do a good job parenting her. I owed it to her and myself. At 23 months, I night-weaned. I will not lie; it was hard, really hard, especially the first night. But it was worth it. We now get five to seven hours of uninterrupted sleep. I feel like a new woman! The next thing for us to work on is for her to sleep near me, on a mattress on the floor next to our bed, for example. Currently, she must fall asleep with her hand on my breast and she kicks a fair bit in her sleep. So it's hard for the three of us to sleep comfortable on our queen-size bed! I wish all of you the very best. I know how frustrating and exhausting it is.

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  6. Reading you post and then reading your comment, I just feel like I should tell you that you're not alone. My five year old is the only one who really does a good job of sleeping through the night, but as difficult as it is, I know that there is a reward in mothering them through the night, as opposed to letting them cry in abandonment. And as long as those nights seem, the years sure go by in a flash.

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  7. Oh, I'm thrilled to hear this! Hooray!

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  8. I love these Ergo baby carrriers and other sling contraptiond for carrying your baby around. So somfortable and easy to use....cant be better !

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