SIO and the summer-tease

Alrighty, so last week our weather was surreal. It got up to the 80's in some parts of midcoast Maine. Holy crap, 80 degrees in March??? It was AWESOME but also heartbreaking because it ended and now we're back to cold, cold, cold, windy, possible snow. UGH.

And SIO is my new theory regarding the family bed. Forever my husband was sleeping on the couch. Not just because I asked him to frequently after our son was born, but also because he has a nasty habit of falling asleep with EVERYTHING on and waking up at 4 am, like WAAAHHHH??!!! So lately he has been trying to come to bed with us. AND even if he wears a Breathe Right strip, he snores like a freight train for the first 45 minutes or so. During which I lay there with the ineffectual pillow over my head while my son sleeps like a... um... baby and I can't fall asleep cuz everytime there's a break in the snoring and I start to dose off, he starts up again. I used to kick/punch/poke him to say "Roll over, please!" and get a snoring break. BUT what I realized is that every time I do that he is cycling back up in sleep and therefore has to start the stages all over again. Now I do SIO (Snore-It-Out) which is I let him snore away, don't touch him or try to wake him or get him to roll over. Eventually he stops snoring and I fall asleep, and then we're generally good from there! This is for wives out there who have snoring husbands (and you've tried everything else)... it could work for you too :)

Now if the kid would just STTN we'd have it made in the shade.

Can I just say something?

I love my midwife. We had a rocky start (well, she probably didn't notice anything)- in my 1/2 dose of Welbutrin, dealing with PG and herniated disc, 7-months pregnant mind, she wasn't my ideal midwife. BUT she was fantastic during my labor, and looking back everything was the way it should have been. Yes, I had Pitocin upon her recommendation, yes I ended up in the traditional, not good for anybody position during the pushing stage, yes I had morphine midway through because I hadn't slept in 48 hours, but she didn't doubt me, she was stern yet kind. At one point during my labor she told everyone else in the room to "shut up" (not my hubbie, just the other myriad of nurses, docs, pedis, etc. who were all saying "you can do it, you're almost there" etc while my son was crowning) and told me to focus on her voice and only listen to her. Since I had my son I've seen her several times at the doc's office for appts and a few times as she calls it "out in the community." Her husband performed the ceremony at a good friend's wedding. It was such a nice surprise to see her.

Sometimes I think about baby catching and how she caught my baby. I remember her telling me that I did a fantastic job and I should be really proud of myself. She asked me if I was, and I think I said "sorta..." because I was still hung up on how the birth wasn't completely natural, how I gave in to interventions that may not have been necessary, etc. I feel differently now. I KICKED ASS. I still KICK ASS. I am a great mom.

I saw her last week for my annual PAP, etc. (I forgot how much a PAP hurts! it's not a q-tip guys, it's got metal on the end, OWWIE) and instead of being all business like some, she let me vent and chatted with me for a good half hour about sleep and extended breastfeeding. She has an only child, a son, who just turned 23. She validated our experiences, that my son is normal even though he wakes up constantly freaking out, there's nothing wrong with him. That it's ok and wonderful to do attachment parenting (cosleeping, EBF, child-led, etc.) BUT that if we decided to do CIO, our son would have had a great start towards independence and good self-esteem because of the sacrifices we've made (mostly loss of sleep! LOL) so far. She congratulated me and told me that I am a wonderful mother. I started crying because I had no idea how much I needed that validation, especially coming from the person who delivered my son, and who has been there, done that. She gave me a hug at the end of our visit and also gave me her home phone number so we can talk about parenting. She is intuitive, she knew right away that I needed some local, in-person, support around attachment parenting.

Wow 2 posts in one day. Go me! 

18 month sleep regression be damned!

My son will be 17 months in less than a week. It seems like he might already be in the 18-month sleep regression, though I've never been through it before so I'm not sure. He's been waking up pretty much hourly, crying like he's in pain, freaking out, whining, the whole range. The ONLY thing that will stop the screaming is nursing... nursing nursing nursing for hours until I whisper, "ok honey you need to let mommy go so she can roll over for a few because she can't feel her hand anymore."

Here's what I'm thinking, and I hope I don't jinx myself: because my little boy has pretty much never been an all-night sleeper, has woken up every 1-3 hours like 99.9% of the time since he was born, we are still nursing and cosleeping, it seems like a sleep regression won't be as dramatic for us as it might be for someone whose child is a "better" sleeper. For them (those lucky devils), they will be used to sleeping all night, no/minimal wakeups, etc. and then BAM sleep regression and it all goes to shit. They will be super tired and cranky and wondering what the hell went wrong. We on the other hand will have business as usual, only a little more difficult than usual. After almost 2 years of broken sleep I'm pretty much used to it.

In related news, we have rearranged our apartment so that we now have "the sleeping room" (used to be my son's room but as mentioned before he never sleeps in it) and our former bedroom is now "the playroom" (also contains our clothes/dressers). In the sleeping room, besides our bed which is now on the floor (easier for son to get in and out of) and my son's dresser, there is the infamous crib which is now a toddler bed (what an easy conversion!) He goes over to it and yells "bed!" then gets in it and jumps up and down on the mattress. Then it's off to other things. My theory is that having it there with us each night, it will just sit there all tantalizingly blanketed and soft with warm cuddly stuffed animals... calling to him slowly over time... and someday I'll wake up in the morning after a long full night of sleep and he'll be over there asleep in his own bed. I know, you think I'm a crazy dreamer. Well, dream it you f'in dreamers. It could happen! And it WILL happen when my little boy is ready. And I'm cool wit dat.