Battle of the Snooze

CIO
First and foremost, HAPPY DECEMBER!  If you are anything like me, you have already begun decorating.  I spent the last two days of my long weekend Christma-tizing our apartment and showing Jane and Emma all of the pretty, enchanting holiday swag.  And then this happened:
Merry Christmas...ya' filthy animal.

Poor Emma.

But in actuality, I don't feel so bad. 

When I was pregnant with Jane and Emma, my sleep cycle completely changed.  I used to sleep like the dead.  8 hours.  Through everything.  I was even a nightly sleep walker; sometimes I walked around the apartment for HOURS as Hershey and Tyson sat and watched me until I decided to put myself back to bed.

So when the constant pee urges and insomnia started in my third month, I was not exactly the glowing pregnant woman.  As the girls grew in utero, I grew out-utero (is that a word?).  I was HUGE.  And rolling from side to side in bed did not help.  I would roll one way, and poor Emma would wiggle and move until her butt was sticking out of my side.  I would roll the other way and she would wiggle and wiggle until her head was sticking out the other side.  I would try to sleep on my back, but they would press on my vena cava and I would start to lose consciousness.  And forget trying to sleep on my stomach.

When the girls were born, I was so excited for a full night of sleep.  HA!  In the hospital, I was poked and prodded every other hour or so.  Then, when I came home (without the girls), I was up pumping every 3 hours.  The nurses would tell me, "Skip a pumping session if you need sleep!  You need to SLEEP!"  That was funny, because if I skipped a session (which started happening frequently because I was hitting the SNOOZE button without even waking up), I was in major pain.

Fast forward to today.  The little twincesses will be 7 months old next Friday.  And they've only slept through the night twice.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Twice.  It has been almost a year since I've had a full night of sleep.

Now, if you know me, you know that I devour books.  And books that teach me something?  Fuggedaboutit!  I've got The Baby Whisperer, How to Rock Your Baby, Your Premature Baby, and The Happiest Baby on the Block.  I've read this blog and that blog in the quest for sleep.  And finally, FINALLY, last night marked the THIRD night in a ROW that Jane and Emma slept through the night.  


Don't talk to me about this mess.  I'm devastated.

Here's our schedule:

5:35 a.m. Wake up
6:00 a.m.  Small bottle/Play Time (bouncy seats, exersaucers, toonies!)
7:30 a.m.  Nap
8:00 a.m.  Breakfast (apples, pears, bananas, apricots)
9:00 a.m.  Bottle/Play Time
10:30 a.m. NAP (this is usually a long one, about 3-4 hours, and I DON'T WAKE TO FEED again)
1:00 p.m.  Bottle/Play Time
2:30 p.m. Nap (little one)
3:00 p.m. Play time (Mama and Daddy come home from work, yey!)
4:00 p.m. Dinner (carrots, corn, sweet potato/broccoli, mashed potatoes, avocado)
5:00 p.m. Bottle (large)
6:00-7:00 p.m. Baths, Books, Dundadundundadundunda dun Dun DUN!
7:00 p.m. Lights down - Get ready for bed
7:15 p.m. Bottle (large)
8:00 p.m. Crib (NO CHOOPIES!)
8:00 p.m. - 5:35 a.m. SLEEPPPPP  

Now, here's the thing.  MY body hasn't adjusted yet.  The first night, my eyes flew open at 3:00 a.m. and I stared at the monitor for the next 2 hours.  The second night, I was awake at 2:00 a.m., Emma was awake and having a conversation with a stuffed animal in her crib at 3:00 a.m., and then I was awake until almost 4:30.  Last night I was up at 4:10 having to pee, but laid there until around 4:45 hoping it would just magically go away.  I've also been fighting this holiday season cold for over a week, so I was wishing that away, as well.

I think that the biggest issue with their sleeping was the dang choopie.  If we put them down with them in their mouths, they would fall out and at some time between 1-3 a.m., they would notice and freak out.  Something about waking up in a different state than that which they fell asleep in.  Cray.

Also, in my mind's eye, in one of the books I read (I'm pretty sure it was Baby Whisperer), I remember seeing the words "Wear the baby out before you put them to bed."  Which, if you think about it, makes sense.  What do you do if you have energy and can't sleep?  You get up, get a glass of water, visit the bathroom, make a Honey-Do To Do List.  Babies don't have that luxury.  If they have pent up energy, all they can do to wear themselves out is lay in their crib, thrash around, and CRYYYYYYYYYYY.  And, I don't know about you, but, for me, that is SO hard to listen to!  Plus, with Emma's cyanotic breath holding spells, I can't let her cry for TOO long, unless I want another episode like the last one.

What tips and tricks do you have to get your little one(s) to sleep? What experiences have you had with sleepless mommyhood nights?  I'd love to hear from you!

And if you're in the throes of the Battle of the Snooze, hang in there.  You will win. You're not alone.  And YOU GOT THIS!

If all else fails, WEAR THEM OUT!



Hope you get some sleep tonight!  xoxo


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The Lowdown on Lavender

boys
In our quest for the perfect sleep cycle, we have purchased lavender everything.  Lavender shampoo.  Lavender lotion.  Lavender bubble bath.  Lavender washcloths.  If I could have dyed Jane and Emma's hair lavender, I would have.

 So I was beside myself when a good friend of mine (let's call her Carol) emailed me to tell me that her pediatrician had STRONGLY warned against using anything with lavender in it.  Apparently, lavender brings on early puberty.  I rushed to the medicine cabinet and ripped out anything purple and stowed it away, pending a full investigation.  That was 2 months (aka many sleepless nights) ago.

 Last night I finally got around to doing some research.  Turns out, Carol's pediatrician was half right.  According to WebMD, products containing tea tree or lavender oils may cause a condition called "gynecomastia" in boys.  The article defines gynecomastia as "overdevelopment of the male breast".  I can hear what you're thinking.  "Whaaaa the fuuuuuh????"  My thoughts exactly.

 So I delved further, and I found this post on BabyCenter (which, if you remember, is one of my FAVE mommy sites).  I followed the comments, and they lead me to the SAFbaby website, which gave various case studies and testimonials from experts.  Blah blah blah.

 Basically, here's what I've discovered:  The lavender and early-puberty link is INCONCLUSIVE in girls.  There is no evidence to suggest that lavender sends our little ladies hurtling towards puberty at a faster rate.  Furthermore, there are conflicting ideologies when it comes to the causes of the development of "breast buds" in little boys.

 So where do we go from here?  IMHO, you find the products that make YOU feel the most comfortable for YOUR family, and invest in those.  Because there are no such things as "safe things" in baby world.  I mean it.  Just read the tags!

 Hope this sheds some light on a foggy subject!  Have a GREAT Thanksgiving everyone!


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Mommy Zombie

cribs
With Halloween and the new seasons of The Walking Dead and American Horror Story upon us, I thought that now would be the appropriate time to share with you my Sleep Battle. 

Emma's jammies are from The Gap

I have never been a particularly good sleeper. As a teen, I suffered from a wicked case of insomnia, and I would wake up bruised and battered from a fight I apparently had with the wall when I did happen to finally fall asleep. 

In my early twenties, I discovered that I was an extremely light sleeper, when living with a roommate and a kitten brought about constant fights over nighttime noise levels and a battle of wills between me and Tyson (his tiny meow at the foot of my bed woke me up throughout the night).  

Fast forward to living with Hershey. After 3 years of living on my own in Hackensack, Hershey revealed to me that not only did I kick and thrash violently in my sleep (which explained those teenaged bruises), but I also talked and walked in my sleep. Hershey spent many nighttime hours watching me shuffle around the apartment, talking jibberish and chasing imaginary cats. I wondered how many times I wandered the streets in my pj's in the Hack. 

When we found out that I was pregnant, one of my biggest fears was that I would walk in my sleep once the girls were born. Truth be told, as I got farther along in my pregnancy, I grew to be too big to easily get in and out of bed without assistance (I once laid in bed for 10 minutes screaming Hershey's name to come help me out of bed so that I could pee, until I was reduced to tears because I COULD NOT get myself out of bed and I was afraid I was actually going to pee in the bed). Not only that, but I became so uncomfortable that my good friend Insomnia paid me a visit every night.  I would slowly toss and turn for hours trying to find a way to lay in bed that I wasn't squashing a baby. Yeah. Right. 

Once Jane and Emma arrived, sleep became a distant memory. While the girls were in the NICU, I was getting up every 3 hours to pump for 20 minutes so that I could bring breast milk (aka liquid gold for preemies) to the hospital for them every morning. Many times I slept through my 3 am pumping sesh and woke up in a lot of pain.  There were also times that I was so tired that I dropped an entire bottle of freshly pumped BM that exploded all over me and the glider and everything in a 5 foot radius. On these nights I cried. 

When we brought the girls home my sleeping habits just got worse. I was worried about the girls all of the time, and when someone came over to help out, I couldn't conscionably go to sleep while either of them were crying. And since Hershey was still working, I was on night duty all alone. I would get up with one, go through a 45 minute feeding ritual with her, put her down and get the other one to go through the same thing. After an hour and a half of this, if I was lucky enough to fall right asleep, I would get about an hour and 15 minutes of sleep before I had to start all over again. 

I also was never one to understand when people told me, "When they sleep, you sleep."  I mean, how did these people not live in a pile of sh*t when their kids were born?! When they sleep, I clean, cook, do laundry, shop online, run around in my underwear singing along to Luke Bryan... All of the things that I CANNOT DO while they are awake!!!  So basically, I don't sleep. 

These days, Jane and Emma are on a much better sleeping schedule. We have moved them into their nursery, into their own cribs, and the reflux is all but gone. They still fuss a bit in the night, usually after they have been in bed for about 5 hours. We're working on figuring this whole sleep thing out together. Hershey is snoring by my side as I type, but I have too much energy left in me to sleep right now. And this is my cross to bear. 

There are nights now that I sleep so soundly that I wake up in a cold sweat, afraid that I've slept through some incident in the night that Hershey did not hear since the monitor is next to me. On those nights, I fly from my bed and into the nursery, only to find the twincesses sleeping soundly. I then return to bed so pumped full of adrenaline that I just lay in bed staring at the monitor for an hour, waiting for a finger twitch or a chest movement to tell me they're ok. 

It's the next morning at work that I feel like a walking shell of my former self. Man, do I miss sleep!  I would give anything for one straight, restful 5-6 hour clip of sleep. 

How are nights treating you? How do you deal with sleep deprivation? 


Hope you have lots of fun Halloween festivities planned for the weekend! We will be in Hershey's sister's wedding this weekend in Philadelphia. More on that next week! 

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