Friday, September 14, 2007

Crash!

Oliver likes to crash into things at the moment. It involves veering towards walls on his trike. The local butcher's shop seems a favourite target. (Perhaps deep down he's a veggie at heart after all.) It's a fun game.

Lucy had a crash of her own yesterday. Her feeding and sleeping came completely off the rails in the night. It was much less funny. Her parents and brother are all casualties. For posterity (and through a fog) I record here the slow motion replay.

9pm: Hayley and I discuss how Lucy's feeding and sleeping are going well and how she seems to be getting the knack of going to sleep unaided. (Ha ha ha ha....)

10pm: Lucy has last feed of the day, a bottle of Aptamil. (She has 0 or 1 bottle a day, the rest of the time is all breastfeeding.)

11.05pm: To bed.

11.25pm: Oliver wakes crying. I go in, re-assure him and give him a drink of water. Oliver goes back to sleep. I go back to bed.

11.55pm: Oliver wakes crying again. I go in, Oliver sees me and lies down to go to sleep. I ask Oliver what is wrong and why he keeps waking. Oliver starts crying again. I lift him out of his cot and sit with him on sofa-bed consoling him. Oliver cries more, unable to explain until eventually he calms down. Oliver asks to go back to bed. I oblige.

1.12am: Oliver wakes again. Hayley goes into him, settles him back down and comes back to bed.

2.00am: Lucy wakes, less than 4 hours after her feed. She refuses to settle so Hayley goes and feeds her. Hayley tries to feed her and wind her in an attempt to get her to settle for the next 2 hours.

4.00am: I wake to find Hayley still trying to get Lucy to go down to sleep.

4.05am: I take over trying to get her to go down. She will only go to sleep in my arms and then wakes in her cot and starts crying. This repeats time after time. (Hayley had also noticed Lucy wanting to be picked up all the time in the last couple of days, so perhaps this refusal to go to sleep except in our arms could be tied in.)

5.50am: Still trying to get Lucy to go to sleep. She refuses for the umpteenth time and starts crying simultaneously with Oliver starting in his room. I curse Lucy for waking everyone! Hayley gets up and decides that as Lucy has been awake 4 hours since last feed (started) she could be hungry. Hayley feeds her. I go downstairs and make a pot of decaff' tea.

6.30am: Hayley and I finish decaff' tea and put Lucy down. After 3 attempts and about half an hour she goes to sleep.

7.30am: Oliver wakes and can be heard asking for Daddy and to get up. I get up and start Oliver's day.

8.30am: Hayley rises because she has to take Oliver to Debbie (child-minder)'s house. I could take him but we agreed that I would stand little chance of escaping without Oliver demanding to come with me. He's just that clingy with me right now.

9.15am: Hayley leaves for Debbie's house with Oliver, giving me a chance to go back to bed, but....

9.20am: Lucy wakes and won't settle. I get her up.

9.45am: Lucy no longer content just to be up is wailing for a feed. I feed her 4 ounces of Aptamil. She is awake but content.

10.15am: Hayley returns with egg sandwich and coffee for me.

10.16am: Lucy falls asleep.

10.30am: We go back to bed. We all sleep!

12.20pm: Lucy wakes and Hayley goes downstairs to feed her. I stay in bed on her instructions!

2.30pm: I wake, hungry. The house is all quiet. In the living room, Hayley is asleep on sofa and Lucy is asleep in the swing next to her.

2.43pm: I write this blog entry and start praying for a better night tonight.

It is safe to say it was a very bad night, the worst so far and we are exhausted. Suddenly all our confident talk about the "breastfeeding going well" and "one feed a night after 6-7 hours sleep" has evaporated in a haze and been replaced by tired and frustrated grumblings about not being able to go on in this way and how the breastfeeding may have to end. After all, I'll be back at work next week and a night like last night will go from being hard to being borderline impossible with Oliver to get up in the morning.

I think we are in for a few bumpy nights. Maybe things will improve, after all she really was doing OK until last night. Two out of three nights were OK. Only time will tell.