Freak me out!!!

We had a really hard time getting Mitchell to bed last night. He was acting tired around 6:30 so I took him and gave him a bath and nursed him down. He got a second wind though and perked right up. I probably should have worked with him then but often it's just been easier to get him up and then try around 9ish when he is more tired. He had had a good afternoon nap anyway. So I started nursing him again around 8:30 and then tried to put him in bed. No go. This went on for a good 45 minutes but he just wouldn't transfer. I then put him in bed (totally rubbing his eyes) and laid on the floor beside him. Another 20-30 minutes at least. He was mad. He settled a bit and continued crying but would not lie down. Drew came in around 9:45 and took over. He got even madder! He finally settled around 10 after some patting, some holding and some shusshing. We went to bed around 12:30 after I had a shower. Not a peep. I woke up all of a sudden at 4:51am and realized he had not woken up! I got out the flashlight and yes he was fine. Pheww. Your mind can do crazy things. Thank you Lord. Of course in the process I woke him up so I took him into bed with me. I then had to wake him up at 6:45 to go downstairs. Go figure.

How can I repeat this process a little earlier in the evening and without the crying and without the panic?

Memory Monday - early to rise or early to bed?

I'm taking my cue from Katie the scrapbook lady for this Memory Monday. The discussion is early morning habits. And she is right - it is nice to have an idea of some of our daily habits down for memory sake.

I would definitely consider myself a night owl, not a morning person. I get it from my mother. Often you can see the light on in her office at 2 am in the morning. I could easily stay up well into the early hours of the morning too - as long as I am working on something. As it is it is usually at least midnight before I get to bed.

This week I am having a little trouble getting out of bed. Typically I like to be up at 6am to keep an eye on Cierra and get her going on time. Mitchell is getting up at about the same time so it has been working well. Except this week. He has been sleeping later. I like to get him up as soon as he stirs because it usually means he is ready for the potty. And there is nothing better than not cleaning a dirty diaper but rather a dirty potty. SO much easier. I can't hear him if I am not in the bedroom or right with the monitor though. Ideally, I like to get him up and go immediately down to the basement and do 3-10 minute exercise stints. I can do some quiet time and reading in those times too. Then I go up and check on Cierra in between each exercise stint. This hasn't worked this week. It did work well 2 weeks ago. Then I got sick in between and now here we are. I need to get back into that groove. It seems this is a bit of a pattern for me though. I tend to have variations of these patterns all year. I'll be honest though, any chance I can get to stay in my warm cozy bed I will take. Even though I know it will be to my detriment later on in the day.

I don't recall what my childhood habits were regarding sleep. I do know that for holidays my brother was always the first up and was quick to get my sister and I up to join him. I know that we enjoyed Saturday morning cartoons but I don't recall if it was at the crack of dawn or later!

During highschool I seem to recall getting up just to get to class. I don't think I was up early to do anything extra like exercise or early morning job.

When I was in university and home in between, I worked at a number of group homes for the 6-10am shift. I think that is the earliest I have ever had to get up on a regular basis. When I lived downtown and Drew was working out-of-town shift work I did go to the YMCA regularly before work. That would have been for about 6:30am regularly. I loved getting my exercise done and out of the way. And once I was up I was up. Before we had Mitchell I did get out the odd time to do early morning runs. I had to be careful to time it around Cierra's bathroom routine though and it didn't always work.

These days Drew and I seem to have a pretty good rhythm going for weekends. During the week he sleeps until after 7am unless he is going running. On the weekend, if he doesn't have a men's breakfast, he will usually take Mitchell and get up with him at 6amish and let me go back to sleep. I'll get up the other morning and let him sleep in on that day. The only thing that doesn't seem too fair, is that the kids seem to leave Drew alone on the days he "is up" and he still seems to get to doze anyway. Hmmm - what is wrong with this picture?

I find it easiest to get into my work/ hobby groove after the kids have gone to bed. I now need to work around Mitchell's feeding schedule but by far I get the most work done during his morning nap time and then immediately after he had gone to bed. I'd love to stay in bed late in the mornings but it just isn't possible right now. This means I have to get to bed at a decent time and for me that is before midnight. I am blessed however to be able to "function" with less then 6 hours of sleep each night (Mitchell is still feeding 1-2 times each night after I get into bed).

For now it is what it is and I know that it is only for a season. It won't be long before Mitchell will be up taking care of himself in the mornings too. For now I will take it as it is and enjoy it. Even if it means I don't get the regular exercise I should but instead get to enjoy my awesome bed. I'm willing to make the sacrifce. Trust me, it's hard but someone has to do it.

A sweet sleep blessing

I can honestly say that I kind of enjoyed bedtime routine this evening.

I went up with Mitchell around 6:45, started to wipe him down and change him but he was getting agitated so I ditched that and sat down to nurse. He nursed for about 1/2 hour and showed no signs of falling asleep so we got up and continued the bathroom routine. We then went back to the bedroom and "played". He got a lot of crawling/creeping done and I interacted with him and also caught up on some emails (LOVING the ipod touch!!!). He was in a great mood and just playful. It was awesome. The kids came up around 8pm and said their good nights and I toileted him and did the final songs and prayers. I then nursed him again for about 5 minutes (he wasn't that interested so no problem). I then put him into bed whereupon he started to cry. It wasn't the cry that indicated he needed to be up but I soothed him by shh-patting and talking softly to him. He continued off and on for about 15 minutes with me picking him up intermittently but him not getting overly upset. Could we be getting the hang of this? Anyway, he calmed down so that he was actually just lying in bed making noises. Then his noises turned to the raspberry sound. Which he has been making when he needs to go poop. And which he has been making because it is a fun sound. But I thought I should probably respect the communication part and reaffirm the sound for what we are wanting it to be used for. So I toileted him - no go. I then put him back in bed where he continued to make the noises as well as blowing. No tears. I was just so overcome with his cuteness right then. He rolled over a few times, looked up at me, blew some air and some raspberries. Just content. A few more rolls, some rubbing of his eyes and he was asleep. Amazing. I can only dream that this may happen more in the future but for now, I was so blessed with the time we spent together tonight. Thanks buddy!

BTW - thanks also buddy for an amazing nap today. I was actually getting frustrated that he wasn't transferring (after 3 tries) to his bed after an hour of nursing and falling asleep!!! I prayed "thusly" and then [yes] he did transfer with the next attempt - and slept for 3 1/2 hours (until 2pm)!!! God does have a way...

I am learning what it means to be a prisoner in my own home...

ohh that sounds bad. Well, I'll admit that I am and have been frustrated the last few days. Today Mitchell's bedtime routine took 2 hours. 2 hours!!! We started this whole thing so that I could (we could) get our evenings back. Well they say it gets bad beore it gets better. I hope this is the case. I don't know how much worse it can get! The poor kid is so tired and you know he is ready and needing to sleep but he is so frustrated. The crying this time around is making up for all of the crying he never did in his early months (but I am with him and comforting him through it although at times I really want to walk away). Brutal.

As for the prison part? Well I am in my room with him, lights off so I can't read, he pulls at my ipod wires so I can't listen to anything either and no one else can come in. Oh and did I mention no one else can come in? I'm such a mean mommy to the other three. Thank goodness Drew is here and tolerating all this and providing the much needed other parent. He's a good guy. And we're praying this won't last long.

Routines sometimes take time to develop...

This is a lesson already learned and needing to be reminded. We are in a transition time with Mitchell's sleeping and probably will be for a little while. I need to remember that I have to keep on trying and that he will get used to our expectations as they become more familiar to him.

This evening actually went fairly well. I started with a bath (even though he usually has one in the morning I will try to sponge him down in the evening) and then a snuggle with a book. He wasn't overly interested in the book but I stayed in the chair to nurse him. When he was pretty much asleep I moved to the bed, continued nursing him and then left. I had to return only a few times and then he did stay in bed all night (this was all after 9pm). I think it may be a first. I hope to add the teeth brushing in there (first I have to find the tooth brush I bought - oops!). Again, the goal is to create a bed time where he is in bed from 7 or 8ish on.

This also means that I have to be more prepared for bed myself - earlier. Some nights I may find myself falling asleep while putting him to bed so I am getting changed and ready for bed earlier then usual. Downstairs needs to be ready. Teeth need to be brushed. This may actually be a good thing for my diet! I am also using my ipod again and using this time to catch up on all of the podcasts I've downloaded. I was watching tv but he seems to get more stimulated with the tv so another lesson learned... quietness and less disruptions are better. Now I just have to teach this to the kids. I really hope that this catches on quickly as it is harder on the other kids. I'm so glad that Drew is here and does the bedtime routine anyway with them but I like to be around for that too.

Back to the routines... I am so glad this worked out today! It allowed us to watch Date Night and The Last Song together with few disruptions (the younger kids were at the farm). Both were quite entertaining.

Sleep is a wonderful thing...

Today I learned (or relearned) that sleep is a wonderful thing. I am a much happier person when I get at least 6 hours (not 4.5 like I did last night). I am a much more tolerant person when I have more sleep. I am a much nicer person (I think) when I have more sleep. AND Mitchell would be a lot happier (I think) if he could learn this lesson in the wee hours of the evening.

That is another story but let's put it this way, we both need to work on our evening sleep routine OR LACK THEREOF. Period.

Dream a little dream....

I love seeing him like this...

And can I say that he has been making my nights amazing???

Well once I go to bed that is. He is still tending to be up for most of the evening but once we all go to bed he has been doing so well. On Tuesday night he slept 7.5 hours! Most nights it is still somewhere between 4 and 5 at a time but we are also experiencing a lot of EC success. Today we had two poop misses - I was distracted after with guests and didn't think about having just fed him. Yesterday though I caught all of them! He has also had 2 dry nights (me being able to catch him before he goes upon each stirring). The times that we have missed he is just lightly damp which is great. I love this success however it does mean getting up and down a lot. With the side bar now on our bed and Marlee still getting in some nights I have felt a little claustrophobic - even though it is a king! I have found myself sleeping along the bottom of the bed in the early hours. Still, I am happy that he (we) are doing so well in this department. If it all leads to being diaper free earlier then the other two I am ALL for it!

Today he was in the swing, he was fussing, I checked his diaper, he was dry, took him to pee and he went. It is really cool to see him communicating with me this way! So however it works, we will take our sleep as we can and be happy! I know I am!

Snuggles

ahh snuggles... this doesn't happen very often. usually he just falls asleep eating. not in my arms. definitely something to cherish.