Monday, November 08, 2010

Um, Hello God, It's Me...

Our daughter, that lovely little monster, is nearly four months old.  By now, I had thought the restless nights and fits of screaming would begin to subside.  Oh, how wrong I was!  Lucky us, she had colic and painful gas the first three months and now she's probably got GER(D) - otherwise known as acid reflux.

I've tried to be a good parent.  I've cuddled, hugged, kissed, held, and soothed her lovingly in every way that I can.  But days like today and nights like last (actually, the past two weeks) make me wonder if I'm doing something wrong.

From the get-go, I wanted to be sure that we didn't start any bad habits that would later need to be broken.  This includes letting her sleep in our bed.  Early on, I had her sleep in her own crib, swaddled her, and did my best to develop a routine.  The nighttime routine came easy and was well-established: down by 10:00pm, wake up for a feeding at 1:00am and 4:00am, right back to bed.  There were even a couple of nights when she slept for six or seven hours.  All was going well... until a couple of weeks ago.  One night, she couldn't get calmed down for TWO HOURS.  She screamed from 9:30pm 'til 11:30pm STRAIGHT.  Blair and I, both, did our best to get her settled but it was futile.  We even laid her in her crib and left to go to bed, ourselves; to no avail.  When I finally went into her room at 11:30pm and picked her up, she was out within a minute.

Last night sucked, too.  I got less than two hours of sleep.  For some reason, Morgan has developed a sincere love for her pacifier and seemingly cannot be without it.  I have become a crib-side slave making sure that the pacifier stays in her mouth as she sleeps.  On those rare occasions when it falls out and she remains asleep, it doesn't last long - maybe 20 minutes - before she wakes and begins to fuss and cry for it again.  Well, this is not good.  So much for trying not to have her develop any bad habits.

Today I have decided that she is going to go without the pacifier ALL DAY.  She is going to have to find another way to soothe herself to sleep.  The first early-morning nap went okay - she slept for 45 minutes and no pacifier was used.  But at 9:55am she started fussing and looking tired.  I tried to soothe her to sleep and laid her in the crib.  Well, it's now 12:05pm and she's still screaming and crying.  We have officially broken that two-hour record previously mentioned.

I have asked God, countless times, to help me get through these days and nights.  Perhaps this is payback for having a good (sick-free) pregnancy.  Or maybe it's payback for trying a cigarette when I was ten years old.  Whatever it is, I'm losing my mind, my strength, my emotional stability, my Spirit.  I'm so tired that the energy required for taking a shower (let alone anything else)  is just not there.

I wish I had a happy baby who slept through the night.  My other mom-peers all have seemingly perfect children who are full of smiles and sleep when they are supposed to.  Mine is cute and all, but she's a pain in the ass.

I remember when I had some control over my life - when I had money to spend however I wanted, when I could go out of town whenever I wanted, when I could eat anything I wanted at any time I wanted, when I could pee when I wanted/needed, when I could sleep at least six hours every night... I remember those days.

Now Morgan isn't the only one crying...

Posted by Jessie_b :: 12:10 PM :: 1 comments

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