Thursday, November 05, 2009

Night Owl



No. He's not sleeping through the night yet, though thanks for asking. If he were sleeping through the night, do you really think I'd have bowling balls beneath my eyes? Do you think my hair would be in a perpetual ponytail? Would I REALLY be this cranky? (okay, maybe that'd be a yes to #2 and #3, but whatevs.)

Yes, my first two kids were sleeping all night by this point. Sawyer was the best. I think by seven or eight weeks he was going 10 or 11 consecutive hours. Sage wanted to get up once a night, around 3 a.m., for a bottle. We shut her down at six months. The first night she cried for an hour and a half, and all I could think was "What child cries for that long?" The answer is MY child, and she continues to show her dramatic "flair" at age 4. Anyway, the second night she cried for about 30 minutes, and that was it.

Xander will be eight months old next week. And he still likes a nocturnal visit or two. Part of the issue is that his crib is in our room. So it's tough to let him cry it out when he's two feet away from me. I mean, he KNOWS I'm there. We had to drop the mattress down to its lowest position because I could see his little face peering at me from over the crib rail.

He is also the first child I have nursed this long. I wonder if he's actually hungry when he wakes up, and since he had that scary month where he gained just three ounces, I figure I'd better feed him if he's asking.

I don't want to move him into Sawyer's room yet for two reasons: 1) he'd wake Sawyer up with his yelling and 2) Sawyer would wake HIM up when he went to bed later.

Some have suggested moving Sage into Sawyer's room so Xander could have a room to himself in which to cry it out. But I don't want to even ponder Sage's reaction to that suggestion. Plus, her stuff is, you know, pink. Which is fine with me. As the only girl, I want her to have her own girly place, where she can have all her dress-up stuff and her play kitchen and her dolls (I should mention that our bedrooms are the size of cereal boxes, so there's no space for all that in Sawyer's room).

There's also the issue of the two of them staying up for hours, alternately giggling together and slapping each other silly. Then NO ONE will sleep.

I keep waiting for Xander to figure it out on his own. I suppose I should admit that a little part of me is just melty for my last child. Maybe I don't mind so much our little late-night snuggle. Pretty soon he'll be done and we won't have this kind of closeness. Which is fine, you know, part of growing up and all.

But for now, if he needs a mommy fix at 2 a.m., well, I guess I'm an enabler.

2 comments:

kirsten said...

OMG! This is MY house, just a year ago!

We moved Cecilie & Lars in together a month before Annika was born, and left 'em that way until last month. We made a teeny tiny pink corner for C in an otherwise all-boy room, and she was pretty happy w/ a canopy (IKEA) hung over to delineate space.

Now the girls are in together, and its pink ALL OVER ALL THE TIME.

But yeah, Annika pretty much got fed whenever she wanted it, for all the reasons you describe. ALL of them. And I don't even REMEMBER when she finally started sleeping through. It wasn't consistent enough to make an impression on me. :)

Nice to know that I'm not alone in owning Poor Sleepers. Altho sounds like your other 2 are good? ALL THREE of mine were up in the night last night.

Cheryl said...

I guess this isn't the time to mention that Xander slept ELEVEN hours last night? WTF?!?! I did give him an antihistimine before bed b/c he was coughing, but I've given it to him before and never gotten this much sleep out of him. I think it's his longest evah! So maybe today I should blog about Sage's whining and then she, too, will stop? ;)

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