Its just after midnight and we are going on our second crying fit the current one lasting already nearly an hour already. I can’t sleep, I can’t breathe. I feel for my beba and I want nothing more than to scoop her up in my arms and let her know it will all be okay and that Mama’s here.
Sleep training is not something we ever wanted to do, but here we are at almost 13 months and none of us has slept through the night since birth (for me maybe since I was 7 months pregnant), Iza included. It is driving Kurt and I emotionally apart in some ways since we physically have no interaction and we are over taxed, exhausted and never have time to be together. Iza also really needs her sleep. For weeks she has been the crabbiest from wake up to morning nap time and then again from about 6pm on to bed time. She has started to sleep less and less throughout the day hours and the dark circles under her eyes have begun to deepen.
We have to try something new.
As mothers we are wired to hear our beba’s distinct noise from a crowded room of crying little ones. Our leche comes in and when we do not use our given assets to comfort the little ones we begin to ache something fierce. The reality is that life has evolved to a point where we all need enough rest to get through a relatively busy existence.
My step-sister breastfed and co-slept and her method worked for both her girls by establishing a routine and then her husband getting up to rock the girls to sleep in the middle of the night. It helped to still show comfort, but to remove the breast from the equation. My friend’s little girl was placed in her crib from day 1 and slept through the night, establishing the routine from the get go. There was no question in her beba’s mind that her comfort zone was the crib. She didn’t breastfeed which made this possible from the beginning, but the principle still works for breastfed children if they are placed back in the crib after a feeding.
Iza eats enough to sleep through the night, but she is still feeding at least 1 if not 2 times a night. We have been moving around a lot, so our assumption was she needed the comfort and the stability of on demand feeding, but clearly it is not working for any of us. We question if it is now too late to change without permanent psychological damage. Yikes.
I feel a little crazy from the noise. Now we are going on an hour and a half and I still hear no end in sight. So I sit here in the dark, and eat chocolate and try to zone out and concentrate only to the waves while writing.
Una noche completa. (1 night complete)
