YAWN.

Things have reached epic proportions around here. When I say things I mean the fact that we haven't slept in nearly 10 months. When I say we I mean Sean & I. Eric just recently started losing sleep, for instead of waking up every hour and moving until I feed him, Sean has added crying out to the repetoire, which disturbs the whole queen sized bed. Before that, Eric slept through it all. We are all sick with colds and for the past few days I haven't been able to muster enough energy to play with Sean, much less lift him and change him and feed him. Don't worry, I'm still doing those things, but at a snail's pace. A really fucking slow snail with bags under its eyes and a headache that's lasted for days no matter how many pain pills it takes.

Sean was born in December. He started out in the bed because we were afraid he wasn't breathing right due to the congestion he had as a c-section baby. We had him propped up and everything. And from then on we kind of just kept him there. He liked being there and we liked having him there. But over the past couple of months it has ceased to be enjoyable. We used to laugh in the mornings and marvel at this tiny boy in our bed, but now we just growl at him when he starts talking in the darkness of dawn. I hate feeling this way.

Today I finally placed a request at my library for Dr. Ferber's book. I know a little about the method and have tried to let Sean cry it out for 3 nights but it was a disaster. Each night was worse than the last. We went for the gentler approach that I read in a book called Good Night, Sleep Tight that Sean's pediatrician recommended: sitting in the room while he was in the crib (yeah right - picture him reaching through the slats of the crib towards us, banging his head against the heavy wood, confused tears shaking in his eyes); we tried going in repeatedly, rubbing his back, anything (yeah right - this only upset him further, like why won't you idiots take me out of here?) Now, we are at a complete and utter loss. The few books I have read on the subject pretty much agree that sleep begets sleep. So you can imagine that since Sean doesn't get restful sleep, he doesn't beget any during the day. If I'm lucky, he'll nap for a few minutes in his swing, which I learned from a book is a crutch, not real sleep anyway, but as real as it gets around here. And he'll be outgrowing that swing in like a week. I have no idea what I am going to do then. Oh, and breastfeeding is a sleep crutch too. A crutch we both rely on to get him to sleep and back to sleep and to stay asleep. If only I could rewind time and ease him into his crib. My mother warned me about this. I had no idea how awful this would be. I'm going to read Ferber's book and see if I can agree with the method. It just seems so barbaric. The three nights I already put in turned Sean into a shaky, shuddering leaf of a baby. I swear he is still having residual clinginess and crankiness from those three nights.

I am so very, very tired. I want my son to be a well-rested baby. But he is not. He is cranky and tired and yawns all the time during the day and I don't know how to fix it. He fights sleep so willfully it is frightening. He wants to be happy, you can see it; he laughs and smiles but in a second it's tears and whines. I feel quite helpless. You might be thinking just stick him in his crib but we've done that. It is far more complicated than I ever imagined.

xo