Week 3 Review and Sleep Deprivation

Let's see - What a week - Lumberjack party for 100, infectious outbreak, running out of gas on I-264 (?), the sink/bubble/fall fiasco....could have been better, but was still pretty awesome. Today is our one month anniversary of becoming a family and things have been going pretty darn well. I'm still a bit frustrated with the sleep thing, so forgive me while I spew a bit about that. I wrote this last night in the middle of the process...

Let me preface this by saying that we have a nightly routine of bath, full-body lotion massage, couple-of-books reading, prayers, multiple kisses and hugs, light dimming (but not too far), etc.

It does not seem to matter whether naps are taken, whether they stay up late, whether they play their hearts out, swim, whatever - bedtime does not come easy. I am weary. I LOVE being a mom, but I just wish we could get the sleep thing working well - I know....it's only been 3 weeks, but I have to have something negative to say or people will think I'm not keeping it real. And, believe me with regard to this sleeping thing, I'm keeping it real - I could pull my hair out sometimes. Jetu would be easy on her own, but Nebyat - she just thinks that she should go to bed at the same time and in the same room with Mommy and Daddy and there's no laying down with her until she's out and then getting up - she's hyper vigilant and is awake within 12 minutes if not before I'm out of the room. She's a stubborn one too. For the first couple weeks, I sat in the room with them, but again it took forever for them to go to sleep and then she'd be back up within 30 minutes anyway. This weekend I've been working on being right outside the room in intermittent view, making sure she knows regularly that I'm here. She's crying and she didn't cry for the first 45 minutes while Jetu cried a bit and played and cried a bit and played. However, the minute Jetu fell asleep, she started. See, she thinks Jetu should sleep alone and she should sleep with Mommy. We did set up what we call a nest in Mommy and Daddy's room with a futon mattress on the floor. In the middle of the night, when she wakes up, she gets up and comes to our room and crawls in the nest and sleeps the rest of the night with an occasional wake-up check to see that I'm still there. I wouldn't even mind if she went in there and went to sleep at 8:30 or 9:00 or 9:30, but unless I'm going to sleep at the same time, she is not satisfied. Jetu wakes up in the middle of the night screaming from her room once or twice each night (of course, different times than Nebyat). She just requires a quick reassurance that I'm here and goes back to sleep within seconds. This is causing me (and it's all about ME, you know) much stress and it breaks my heart to hear either of them cry. I just "know" that the best thing for our family is to work through this in a consistent, reassuring manner where the girls go to sleep in their room with reassurances that we will be here all night and in the morning when they wake up; and, that they can call to us or come to us if they wake up in the middle of the night and be reassured. The alternative, some of the family bed techniques, etc. just seem to postpone the inevitable, in my opinion. Besides, let's be completely honest about this - I need 30 minutes to 1 hour of Mommy time and I need it at the end of the day before going to bed. I am exploring and learning as best I can, but I am at a bit of a loss at the moment, if anyone has an opinion or advice - I'm open to hearing it.

Oh, by the way after the second 45 minutes (of Nebyat fussing with Jetu asleep), she too went to sleep with me sitting with my back to her in the doorway. She woke up and came into our room later in the middle of the night and went right back to sleep in the nest.