Oh Happy Day!

I am happy to report that Noa is doing a lot better. After all the wonderful advice I decided I needed to bit the bullet and undo the bad habit I had created with Noa and his napping. For those of you that don't know, Noa usually only naps in my arms. Let me start by explaining that this was not the kind of parent I planned on being, it just happened. Chris and I figured out it all started when I was nursing exclusively, Noa was so fussy, so we assumed he had colic and I cut things out of my diet and I started rocking him to sleep and pretty much doing anything to get him to fall asleep. After his one month doctors appointment, we learned that Noa wasn't getting enough to eat, at all. He had gained only a single once in almost 4 weeks! He was supposed to gain that in a day. Stressed and feeling like a horrible mom I started pumping to ensure he got enough milk as well as continuing to let him nap in my arms. Well as you can imagine this has gotten really old, after five months of almost being glued to the house I decided that's it somethings got to give. So over the weekend I started working on his sleep problems one at a time, first the napping I started laying him in his crib after I rocked him and you wont believe that he has been sleeping in his crib for an hour now and he's still asleep. I orignally tried letting him cry himself to sleep but he didn't fall asleep and I couldn't do it. I remembered a book that Meesa swears by "Secrets of the Baby Whisperer" I had read it when I was pregnant and tried it when Noa was a few weeks old but that's when he wasn't eating enough so it didn't work and I forgot about it. I picked up the book yesterday and it actually had a whole chapter on Noa's problems it was like a God send. Thanks Meesa! So the plan is to get him to feel comfortable in his room and his crib so eventually he will drift off to dreamland on his own. I just can't believe it's working, I would recommend this book to anyone. I just wanted to say thanks for all of the great advice, it really gave me the motivation to do something different. Hopefully in a week or so Noa will be sleeping like a pro.

7am

So after I wake up my lovely sleep with Noa, you know, the kind where he just lies next to you without a stir and then just smiles at you when he wakes up..at 7am. Carree is asleep on the couch and is desperately tired. Not only that but she plans on going back to sleep for at least another 30 minutes before I have to get ready to go to work. Sounds like a solid plan, right? Well, our apartment complex found it a wise idea to do some renovations to our pool, generally not a bad idea. However, when they decided they needed to do the renovation at 7am with the use of a jackhammer then they ensue the wrath of a sleepless mother. And this leaves Carree awake again.

Ramblings of a Sleepless Mother

It's 2:30 in the morning and I am up yet again, I can't fall asleep after feeding Noa and putting him back down. He's 5 months old and at 4 months he slept from 7:30 to anywhere between 4 and 5 in the morning with a midnight dream feed, which was pretty good if you ask me and he had been sleeping like that from about 2 and 1/2 to 3 months, but I have no clue what his deal is now. For the last two weeks he's been getting up every two hours and eating anywhere from 4- 6 ounces each time and I am so utterly exhausted. I tank him up before bed and it's no help, he's even started to eat rice cereal but the boy still gets up every 2 hours for more. I am so tired right now that I can't sleep, I know it sounds crazy but I just lay in bed getting more and more frustrated at the fact that I can't drift back into sleep. So here I am writing to get my frustrations off my chest in the hope that I will be able to sleep for at least an hour before I am awaken again by Noa at 4 ....most likely. I have not had more than two hours of consecutive sleep for way too long and I have never been the best sleeper and the more tired I get the harder it is for me to sleep. I am surprised I am even functioning, will this ever end? I am sure you all are thinking well he needs to nap more, but honestly his napping is alright... besides the fact that he refuses to sleep longer than an hour in the daytime out of my arms. So as long as I hold him he takes some pretty good naps. I just wish I could figure out the magic way to get him to sleep better, so that I can sleep better. I get mad that Chris can drift into sleep so effortlessly and I can't. Noa even sleeps well, he just gets up to feed and then goes right back down....but not me. I can't wait until he this growth spurt from hell ends and I get my Noa back. I just hope that ends really soon, because I am just so exhausted. I think the lack of sleep is starting to really get to me.