I've even had my car trips taken over by this dictator!
I was intellectually prepared for all sorts of scenarios, and I didn't expect to get much sleep. But then my adorable little monster lulled me into a false sense of security. He spent a couple of months sleeping really really well at night - from 9-10 pm til somewhere between 6 & 8 am he would only get up once to eat. He was doing GREAT! I didn't mind (too much) that he consequently ate every 1-2.5 hours all day long to made up for the long stretches he was going overnight without eating. I did mind the fact that he wouldn't nap for more than about 45 minutes at a time a little bit, but I definitely wouldn't have traded the two willingly.
WHAM! Just when I was least expecting it (I know, I know, that's ALWAYS when it happens), he decided to change everything I knew about his even slight routine. The last week has consisted of him taking one super long nap per day, maybe 2-3 hours, plus a shorter nap or 6, some of them only about 10-15 minutes. And now he's eating 3-4 times overnight again. This is so chaotic for me.
I've been working really hard at just accepting and expecting it. That is the biggest thing I've learned in my life, but especially in the last year (I was officially pregnant as of one year ago now, so my little peanut is kinda a year old in at least SOME ways.), is that I handle disruptions in my life/schedule/routine much better if I can just accept and/or expect them. Even if they're changes I'm not necessarily happy about (like getting woken up every 2 hours) don't bother me as much if I mentally embrace them.
I did notice that all of this schedule & feeding changes happened just when I decided to pick up those couple of shifts, kinda wondering if he just got upset with our change in routine or just missed his mommy. Or maybe he's just a baby and is unpredictable, hard to say for sure.
So just when I was starting to handle this OK the lack of sleep apparently affected my immune system and now I have a cold. Which isn't so bad, except for 3 things. 1: I'm not sleeping at night or during the day much and little one is therefore out of sorts and wants to sleep on me/next to me. 2: He wakes up every time I sniff/wipe/blow my nose or sneeze and 3: I'm breastfeeding so I pretty much can't take any cold medicine that would help with #1 because either it's not good for him or it is likely to dry up my breasts for the day. But I think I'll manage. Or at least I thought I would. Then he caught the cold, so now we're having a grand old time.
We wore this for about an hour...
Unfortunately it means that I'm my normal amount of sore, plus achy/sore from cold, and then the sinus pressure and all the other crap that comes along with a cold. Adding in sleep deprived and a sleep deprived baby didn't go great for us. Cold rainy weather didn't help as I definitely wasn't bringing my little man outside, but even just wearing him around the house was pretty uncomfortable for me. I'm guessing that he feels me being icky and he feeds off of that (sometimes more literally than others!), plus is bored from sitting around the house, and is tired. So he's cranky and I'm ill-equipped to handle it. So today we mostly hung out and cried. I'm hoping this isn't a preview of years to go. I'm assuming that when he gets to the age of being physically capable of playing with toys and watching movies that when I get sick again in the future we'll be able to have a movie/junk food day with some inside playing and it will turn out better. For now, nearly 5 months old, he's just sad and snotty on top of me being sad and both of us exhausted. And when he gets too snotty, he just pukes up the extra snot. Oh joy! Not that it really matters, what's a few outfit changes and extra burp cloths to the neverending laundry? The best part I think was when he exploded poop out about 5 seconds AFTER puking down his shirt. I didn't even have the Bears outfit on!
He was strangely happy for breakfast though...
So many blurry hands in his life!
Last night was such a strange anomaly. He actually went almost 8 hours without eating - but he was up every 2 hours to complain at me for about 10 minutes, slapping me in the face repetitively and screaming before passing out without any real comforting or feeding. So I don't feel too bad for not getting much sleep in there at all - not only could I not figure out how to breathe but I was getting slapped all night. Luckily (maybe?) insomnia has hit me hard with this cold, so I'm not sure I'd have slept great anyway. Blessing enough.
So for the remainder, I'll just try to take more pictures of him happy in the very very few happy minutes I'm getting per day. We've got to find a way to get ourselves back together enough for Halloween - with a party coming and Legan's first trick-or-treating and pumpkin carving we need to at least function!
In the meantime - Netflix isn't working, so we're bingeing on Roseanne. Do I feel bad for him? Maybe, but I'm not even in the know enough with kids shows to find one for him.
My excuse for him napping on the floor was that he is sleeping so fitfully maybe he'll sleep easier if I can see him and if he doesn't have to change rooms. In reality - I was too lazy to bother walking him all the way out of the room, and spend 5-10 minutes transferring him to the pack and play just to fail.
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