Need to Sleep!

Yesterday all of Ian's naps were in someone's arms. The first two were in my arms during Sunday School and church, the third was in the Snugli while I mowed the lawn, and the fourth was in Paul's arms while he shopped in Borders. This meant it was very hard to get him to take his first nap in his crib this morning. After letting him cry 30 minutes (the longest I've ever let him cry it out), I nursed him to sleep. The second and fourth naps he cried about 10 minutes before he fell asleep. I rocked him to sleep before his third nap. I am trying to help him develop his self-soothing skills, but for a variety of reasons (some are logical such as that I don't want his crying to wake Nadia), I have a really hard time letting him cry. I would have thought it would be harder to let your firstborn CIO. I am surprised that it's harder for me to let him CIO than it was for me to let Nadia. When I hear him cry, my instinct is to go pick him up and comfort him. It doesn't help that when I do let him cry and then go get him, he looks so pitiful - cheeks bright red, tears and boogies smeared on his face and in his hair, etc.

As hard as it may be, I MUST start doing it at night. I am going to lose my sanity if I don't start getting more sleep. I can't believe I am still functioning given how little sleep I've gotten for over 6 months. Friday night and last night were particularly awful. Saturday night was bearable which is why I was able to mow on Sunday although I wasn't able to finish the whole lawn due to heat exhaustion (it was over 90 degrees out and I was carrying Ian). I usually mow on Saturday, but on Saturday I was dizzy and my head was throbbing so badly I thought I was going to throw up just from exhaustion. I felt the same way today. I was able to function better on Saturday night because a miracle occured in that there was a 45 minute overlap between Ian and Nadia's naps and then to make the miracle even better I was able to get Ian to fall back asleep on me for an additional 45 minutes. That 90 minute nap made the dizziness go away. Ian has been going at least 5 hours the first stretch, but I don't generally go down the same time as he does (although I often go down within 30 minutes of him if he goes down at 8pm or later). What made matters worse last night was that Nadia woke up at 12:30am because she had pooped in bed. I changed her at 12:45 but then insomnia kicked in and I was still awake when Ian woke up at 2am. I didn't get back to sleep until after I put him back down at 2:45am. His first stretch has been okay, but the problem has been that he gets up very frequently after that. I could handle one feeding a night, especially if I could go back to sleep right away. But to be up several times and have a hard time going back to sleep and then to have him start his day sooo early (lately he's been staying up for the day starting as early as 4:45am or today it was 5:30) just leaves me so exhausted. I don't even bother trying to take anything for the headaches. It doesn't help. I need SLEEP. I didn't nap yesterday due to mowing, but I did get a 45 minute nap today. I have to say though I didn't feel somewhat "sane" until 5pm today. Up until that point I just wanted to go to sleep or cry my eyes out. I would give a million dollars (not that I have that much money of course) to be able to sleep 9 hours in a row, especially if I could do it several nights in a row. My plan tonight is to go to bed by 7:30pm and only get up to feed Ian once between then and 6am. Hopefully I will remember how awful I feel during the day and not cave in when he's crying. If Nadia gets up in the night, I am sending Paul since changing her diaper cost me 90 minutes of sleep.

Nadia hasn't had an accident since Friday. She pees on the potty many times a day now. She's drinking a lot more water and milk and not holding it a ridiculous amount of hours any more. She can sit on the regular potty by herself as long as I help her get on it. Once she starts pooping more regularly on the potty (the last time she did that was Thursday), I am going to have her sleep in her underwear at night. She's not peeing during the night. If she doesn't poop during the night, she stays dry. So she's really close to being day and night potty trained. We just need to get her to poop on the potty more. I find it ironic that I am saying that as both in March and mid May #2 was going far better than #1.

During one of Ian's naps today I had her wear a Snow White costume I had bought on clearance after Halloween a few years ago at Walmart. She loved it. She asked for her princess book that my brother gave me last month. It's size 3T/4T so it's a little big for her, but she had fun wearing it.

Sometimes I get frustrated with myself for not being able to do more in a day, but then I think back on my day today and I did two loads of laundry (including folding and putting them away), made brownies (Paul's request this morning), made pancakes for Nadia and I for lunch (inspired by reading If you give a pig a pancake many times recently), did some dishes, and of course took care of my two little ones by myself until Paul got home at 6:10pm. I love being a mom, but I had no idea how utterly exhausted I would feel for months on end.