Barren Mare

Four month sleep weirdness

While it's been fairly smooth sailing on the nightime sleep front around here, I'd been eyeing the calendar with increasing wariness the last couple weeks, as the timeframe for the dreaded four month sleep regression drew near.  Part of me hoped it wasn't going to happen to us, and the other part was slapping myself around the head to get real, since of course it was going to happen- if not now, at some point. 

And then, like a summer squall appearing out of nowhere, it is upon us- or at least I think so, because that is the only way I can explain the relative weirdness of Botany's nighttime sleeping the last couple of days. 

Sunday night looked like this:

• 11pm dreamfeed. Feed for half an hour, straight back down. I get to bed by midnight and to sleep by 12.30.         
• 2 am- Botany wakes up. Down the stairs to nursery. Feed for half an hour, back down but not sound asleep. Low grade grizzle on and off emits over the monitor for the next hour.
• 3 am- I finally get back to sleep when the dog wakes me up, scratching at the bedroom door. E. takes him out.
• 4.20 am- After five minutes of grizzle, I ascertain the baby is in fact, fully awake, and head down the stairs again. Whereupon she eats for another 45 MINUTES before going back down. I finally get back to bed at 5.15 am.
• 6.20 am- Awake! Awake! As usual, I bring her up the stairs to bed for an hour, in hopes she might sleep after nursing lying down with me. But not today!  Wiiiide awake. Looking all around, on and off the boob, yanking head away with nipple still attached. Let's get UP UP UP mummy and PLAY.

Naps sparse all day- a set of catnaps of about 30 minutes each. This is a great disappointment to me as I am hoping to catch a few zzs when she falls asleep. I prop my eyelids open with toothpicks and stagger through the hours until 5.30 pm, by which point she is SO tired that I get her ready for bed.  She is out for the count by 6pm.  The dog goes to stay with my parents for the night. Then, in contrast-

Last night:

• 11pm dreamfeed for half an hour. Straight back down. I collapse into bed and am catatonic by 11.30.
• 5AM. I sit bolt upright. I am leaking milk and my left side is painfully engorged. Holy crap. It's 5AM and she has not made a peep all night. Cue slightly panicked dash down the stairs to stick my head in the nursery door. Botany grunts and sighs, but does not rouse. I go back to bed and waste a precious hour of sleep wondering when she is going to wake up.
• 6.30am. Botany finally wakes up. Again, I bring her upstairs, whereupon she falls asleep on the boob until 8 am!!! 

While last night's sequence of events is infinitely preferable, I doubt it's going to become a regular occurence any time soon.  At the very least I hope we can avoid a wide penduluming between the no-sleep nights and the long peaceful stretches- because even though I try to be very go-with-the-flow, it's can be a little nervewracking going to bed every night not knowing if I'll be up three or four times or not at all.

Also, I really must do something about the burgeoning case of insomnia. I suddenly seem to be having increasing trouble falling asleep myself, even though I am extremely tired most nights.  I find myself lying there, watching the clock tick over, knowing I probably have to get up to feed the baby in a few hours or even less or maybe not at all- and totally unable to sleep. This is more than a little soul-destroying. Going to bed early myself and setting the alarm just so I can get up for the dreamfeed is an obvious solution- but given that I get absolutely zero opportunity during the daytime hours to get anything done around here, not to mention have any personal relaxation or "me-time", it's incredibly hard to switch off in that way. 

Anyway. There are halls to deck and I still haven't managed to do more than get the Christmas box out of the garage and string a few ornaments on the little silver decorative tree. It looks pretty weak all around; I give it a C- minus for effort, really.

I'm dreaming of Botany dreaming

I really love the idea of Christmas, but honestly- do we have to have it right now?  It seems to come at a somewhat inconvenient time.

Getting Botany to have her daily quota of proper, restorative naps has become an ongoing battle. Basically, she sucks at the whole nap thing, both in terms of frequency and duration. Why is it that I can put her down at night drowsy but awake and she will go to sleep, but during the day, there is not a hope in hell of her drifting off for a snooze?  There are basically only three ways I can get this baby to nap-sleep:

1. On my lap, after nursing. 
2. In the bed with me lying next to her, nursing.
3. Walking, with her in the pram.

None of which is very conducive to getting anything done during the day, including eating lunch, attending to personal hygiene, or dealing with the other myriad of small daily chores and duties, some of which can be left to fester on the To Do pile and others which really cannot (i.e. gas to be disconnected unless bill paid TODAY).

And regardless of method, the absolute maximum she will sleep is 45 minutes, but often less. Ka-ching! Eyes wide open, looking all around, alertalertalert!! She has zero tolerance for being wheeled around shops; I suspect the bright lights bother her a little. Nor is she wild about cafes or restaurants. Every week I attempt to go out for lunch with a couple of the other mothers in my group, and every week it is the same story. Their little darlings snooze in their prams like stunned monkeys as I try to cram a baked potato in my mouth with one hand while holding Botany on my lap with the other. 

The only silver lining in this napless cloud is that she (*furtive look over my shoulder with sign to ward off evil eye*) sleeps pretty well at night, going down with a minimum of fuss around 7pm and staying down (most nights) until the dreamfeeding at 11pm.  There's always a middle of the night feed as well anywhere between 2.30-4.30 am. I'd like to one day break the 5am barrier, but to be honest, I don't mind so much, since half the time I am awake anyway (needing to pee/find snack/pop my tricky hip/make lists in head of stuff to do).  And I feel all squishy and melty with maternal love when I see her nuzzled up against me in the dim nursery lights.

But back to the nap problem. The upshot is that it would appear that any Christmas shopping which cannot be done online in the evening is really not going to happen this year. That would be OK in theory, except that there are a couple of  items specifically requested by my nearest and dearest (clock-radio thingy, bicycle accoutrements), which I would really prefer to inspect in the flesh before plunking down my fast dwindling remaining maternity pay.  Also, as of tomorrow E. is off on a business trip abroad for a whole week, leaving me to hold the fort. I'll survive, but I am guessing it will be somewhat energy-sapping; meaning that when I finally do get a spare minute, I am going to want to lie on the sofa, floppy-limbed, watching crap telly and playing obscene Scrabulous with Anna H.* 

The consensus among the family is that we need to keep things really simple this year (and not go hog wild with presents for a four month old baby more interested in eating the wrapping paper). But neither do I want her first Christmas to go by without at least some acknowledgment that it's magical that she is here to share it with us. So at some point, I need to find a spare five minutes to get down into the garage, dig out the tree and the box of decorations (hopefully clearly marked "Chrimbo things") and make an effort to find my inner elf.  And dream of how nice to would be to find a couple months' worth of naps in our stockings on Christmas morning...   

* Your move, by the way.