i'm the caffeinated zombie.
Talking to people who make television for a living, you quickly discover that they are playing by rules that are unwritten but seem to govern the entire industry. Namely - fear and simplicity.
One year ago: We see The Iron Giant.
Two years ago: I have the day of hell of Baltimore, a city I hate.
Three years ago: I go for a run.
Four years ago: Ceej starts her online journal.
Today's news question:Who is Joseph Lieberman and what is so remarkable about the new position he's been nominated for?
(Don't send me your answers. This is just a little way to expand your horizons. Honest.)
Current hell: baby sleep.
She wakes up anywhere from 3 to 5 times a night. When she wakes up, Mommy wakes up, and after waking up 5 times a night Mommy is a trifle, shall we say, zombiesque come morning.
Usually she falls asleep okay on her own. The past two nights she hasn't though, and after 30 minutes of torturous screaming I've gone in there, kept the lights off, and fed her. And she hasn't nursed with a casual "Oh goody, Mamá is here" air, she's latched on with a desperate "My God, woman, I'm starving over here!" focus. After that nursing, she is relaxed and content to be put in her crib and usually falls asleep pretty quickly after that.
I don't know how to get her to use that focus when I am ostensibly giving her the nighttime feeding, which comes right before I put her into bed the first time.
I keep reading and keep hearing I've got to let her cry herself to sleep a few times before she learns to drop off on her own. I would agree with this, except the way she's reacted to the nursing leads me to suspect I'm putting her to bed hungry. Isn't that a nice thing for Mommy to do to baby?
I'm the one who wanted Sophia to sleep with us at the beginning -- I took her out of the bassinet and put her in between us. And now I'm going to be the one to decide if she sleeps in her crib all night. I feel like I'm being cruel putting her alone in her room to sleep by herself -- as I keep reading in these baby books, the US is alone in its desire to put babies in their own rooms and not have parents sleep with their babies.
And I love sleeping with her. I love waking up with her and playing with her in the morning. But waking up several times a night is driving me insane and now, when she's five months old, I'm finally the zonked-out new mom everyone jokes about.
I wonder if she can learn to sleep through the night on her own and then come back sleep through the night with us.
I've noticed that taking her out of her crib and bringing her downstairs when we go to bed at night wakes her up. No duh, right? But then instead of going back to a peaceful sleep, she wakes up several times during the night.
Last night we tried an experiment. I put her to bed in her crib at 8pm. I brought the baby monitor to our bedroom and plugged it in. I decided we should wait until she woke up and started crying before bringing her down.
I woke up at 3:30. (Of course, I'd gone to bed at 12, like an idiot, so it wasn't that much sleep.) I heard the sounds Sophia was making -- I could tell she was awake, but she wasn't crying. "She's awake," I said. "She's been awake for a while," Darin said. I told him to go get her, even though she wasn't crying. I nursed her for 10 minutes and then we fell asleep. And she woke me up again at 5:30. And again at 7:30. I was glad to miss the 1 o'clock one.
Since she didn't wake up at 1 or start crying at 3:30, this seems to indicate that she doesn't need to be fed at 1 or 3:30. But my brain isn't working right when she jolts me out of sleep. I don't have a rational, conscious analysis of the situation: "Why, the baby has awakened. Will simple calm attention return her to Slumberland? She shouldn't be hungry" I'm Fuzzy-Brained Mommy: "Mmmmffff?? Squeak squeak...baby squeak? Pppppttttt. Must console baby. Nurse baby. Sleep." Which has led to this cycle I want to break now.
Darin and I have talked about putting together a separate area for her to sleep in our room, which won't be easy because we have a tiny bedroom. (Great master suite, but tiny room.) I don't know what we're going to do.
I have to do something though. I couldn't drive the other day because I was such a basket-case.
Darin has finally started watching the recordings of American High he made. He wouldn't normally watch a program like this, except he graduated from Highland Park High School.
Me? I went to an all-girls Catholic high school with a graduating class of 50. I cannot relate to this show at all.
In the forum:
Are you as upset as Jonnyx I haven't updated the Spoilers Game?
And today's Question That Needs To Be Answered: I heard on the radio that JK Rowling has made $600m. off of Harry Potter (small moment of weeping) and is now Britain's third-richest woman. We all know who Britain's first-richest woman is. Who is Number Two?
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Copyright 2000 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@nobody-knows-anything.com