You know you've got a problem when...

you quit again, after already quitting. I breastfed a few more times after the last post. In the middle of the night, when baby A is a potentially calmer feeder (if you catch it right) and I was so very tired and couldn't even think of the prospect of her starting to scream in the time it took me to get to the kitchen and prep a bottle. So tired.

And it worked ok. Once during a quiet pre-nap moment on the couch, too. So maybe I didn't have to pump every single time, and I could get some time back, and a little closeness to boot.

But last night, after two really great days (we're married 6 years this last weekend) of morning naps, and meeting people for outings and having some great food delivered while we watched Dr. Who, I was just tired again at 11pm. And she woke up crying. And I had decided to try rocking her back to sleep to see if I could stretch that session until 1am. And instantly Baby A went ballistic.

I tried to breastfeed. Bad idea. She bit me again. Hard. Eyes still closed, screaming. It wasn't her fault. I swore out loud. I was so angry. M came into the room to see if I needed help and I just plopped her down on our mattress and yelled "why won't you fucking sleep?!?" I threw a plush toy. It had a music box inside which made the thud much more satisfying. I threw it again, but I think I'd killed the music box already.

I left the room.

I left M to feed her a bottle, and went to go get my pump.

And I sat in the living room and cried. It was time to quit for real.

The almost totally useless sleep experts here tell me "there is nothing medically wrong with her" and "you should keep her on a feeding and sleeping schedule" and then bring it on home with "if you get overwhelmed, come back to the hospital instead of hurting her or yourself." It boggles my mind how people who worry you might abuse your child would stack more requirements on you. Things to stress out about. Things that make you more nervous when you baby's sleeplessness already has you at the end of your rope.

Anyway, I've quit. For real. I'm considering getting back on some anti-depressant as a way to curb my emotions. If I'm not going to get more sleep anytime soon, I can't afford to feel angry. Sure, ecstatic also goes by the wayside, but at least anger and irritation are out of the picture.

I so didn't want to have to go this far, but what are you going to do when the hope coping mechanism has been removed? I'm not religious anymore, but there sure are some moments when having a deity who is "putting you to a test, designed for you, that won't be more than you can take" would be really useful. As soon as we monkeys got up on two feet and realized we are mortal and that evolution doesn't give a hoot about our happiness or sanity, religion probably saved a lot of homo sapiens from jumping off the nearest cliff.

Tune in next time to see how I got some hope back and how I keep underestimating the Swiss.

I quit.

How did it get to be 2 weeks later already?

Well, that second trip back to the hospital was partially brought to us by the letter "R" - for rotavirus. Baby A caught a stomach bug the first time in the hospital. Nice. Great.

We went back, stayed another 5 days. Her sleep got better again - some problems more like at home, but they chalked it up to the virus. Now that we're home again, virus over, and sleep problems back, I'm not so sure. I think they were seeing some of the middle of night screaming we get here and thinking it was virus discomfort. Her waking schedule started moving closer to our home one.

Anyway, we got back, had one good night, one so-so night, and then....back-in-the-hole! And in the last 8 days, 7 bad nights and one in the middle, strangely quiet. More like the hospital. Of course now I keep obsessing what we did differently that night. Bottle at 7pm instead of right before bed....nope, 2 more times that hasn't worked. Me wearing a hairpin to part my hair on the right? Also, not the solution. Today I'm trying out a long afternoon nap for her, the other thing in the sleep/eat/cry log we've been keeping for 3 weeks now (that is an example in the photo), that preceded some other good nights of sleep.

Ah, right, quitting. Well, a few weeks ago I finally posted that, damn in, I want to breastfeed. But now baby A has 2 front teeth, and breastfeeding was still going rough. And in a moment of struggling (with my milk? with stomach pains? with gas?) she bit me and drew blood. Another few times, bit again, and I just got so nervous and watchful that nothing was nice or relaxing about it anymore. She was getting used to the faster flow bottles from the hospital, and since we were trying to feed her less often, just so freaked out by the time mealtime came, that breastfeeding didn't have a chance anymore.

I'm still pumping for every meal, and we supplement with formula. I made it 5 months, and I'm proud of that, but I do still get a little emotional putting away the last few nursing tops that were in the dryer. Into the box with maternity and newborn clothes. I'll still be a bit jealous of women and babies for whom it goes better.

But I'm ready to just say that the Baby A/mama combo wasn't going to make it any further with the breast feeding. I already had "said goodbye" one day a few weeks ago before going back to the hospital. And when I tried one last time yesterday, it was a disaster. No going back, people. It isn't the same anymore. Time to move on, like only I could have decided.

She now drains a bottle in under a minute sometimes. But still goes a bit too fast and needs lots of burping and resting. Chokes sometimes. Spits up. The food just isn't attached to my body anymore.

Who knows how long I can keep up pumping. Maybe another few weeks? We will see. The doctors said she was probably ready to start on mushed veggies already, but I know that I can't manage yet another food source until I get a bit more sleep at night.

Ok, I'm rambling and boring even myself at this point.

Just do me a favor, ok? Just for this week? For another 2-3 days? Don't tell me how happy you are that your baby isn't teething yet or how much you love breastfeeding. Because I'm still sad. By Monday I'll be fine. I'll adjust. But just not in the next few days. Thanks.

Well shit on a shingle

We are back to square one.

Baby A came home Saturday afternoon, we had a sort of ok night (better then ever before at home apart from the first day we had switched to all formula), and thought the next nights would just get better.

Wrong.

Nope.

Didn't happen. Got worse until, here we are again, it is just like before we left. Ok, not exactly like - she is back on an every 3.5 - 4 hours feeding schedule, getting more at each feeding but less often. She is in her crib for all but a few naps, but the hammock has beer retired. And breastfeeding is, actually, going really well. Better than every before. Somewhat I think thanks to her being hungry at mealtimes, but also because I have learned to trust her when she pushes my body away just slightly - I think it changes something enough that she is then more comfortable. Yes, that's right, my baby has learned to milk me. Again, I feel like a cow. In the best possible meaning of that term.

But back to the sleeping. It is eerie how much it is almost exactly like before the hospital, and this gives me a lot of confidence back. In all we were trying. We didn't wind up with a hammock and swaddling and white noise because of an outdated habit. It is the same stuff we have started to gravitate back to when the hospital methods just don't work. We can't, for the life (and I do mean life) of us get that weird sleep schedule to get any better.

The hospital log sheets show 5 and 6 hour stretches of sleep with just one or two "pop the binky back in and nothing else" marks in them. 4 nights there were like this. And here, whether M and I are both in our room with the door open, or one of us is sleeping in her room, or coming from the living room, "pop the binky back in" just doesn't send her back to sleep. We've mimicked their rolled up towel body pillow, put her in a pajama at bedtime, stopped using white noise or any music, let her naps be short if they will, fed her formula and breastmilk, put her to nap with butt patting instead of bouncing....everything they did. None of it makes a bit of difference. She is once again waking and pooing or farting really hard.

Which leads to a few last ideas (because honestly, I'm running out and I can go pretty damn far when I try), in an attempt to be thorough...

1. that she is allergic to something I stopped eating while at the hospital (I changed my diet there a bit - no eggs, almost no chocolate, lots of carbs and protein) and started again when we got home. The biggest suspect is eggs - I had them for breakfast the day things went back to bad, and in a protein shake for lunch, in powder form. I've been off them and chocolate, tomatoes, berries, citrus and soy (had sushi just before bringing her home) since Saturday. Sleep is no better. Not even marginally, at night. We had one great, calm nap yesterday where putting the binky back in worked. But night, back to hell. 3 hours of sleep for her, then 2, then hours then less.

2. the doctor suggested she may have picked up a stomach bug at the hospital. great. Might explain those mucus poops, but not the pattern that went back to like before.

3. The apartment? I mean, we have had 6 different people work on her sleep, so it isn't like she wakes up just for me. She has slept in the living room for weeks, in our room for weeks, in the guest room for weeks. So it isn't a room. It isn't one of us, at least not directly, behaviorally. What else is here? Some irritant or allergen? Could it be the dog? Or some noise that happens at the same times each day? Is the kid psychic or picking up Wi-Fi signals? But why would that impact tummy issues and farting?

4. The nurses at the hospital lied, gave her sedatives, or something not noted. Do I think this is likely? Of course not. But what do I have left?

So, I've tried to make my diet more like at the hospital. We could try taking her for a few days to someone else's house or a hotel to test #3. Or back to the hospital and I stay up at night to watch what magic those nurses worked on her to get such great sleep patterns.

Anyone have something I haven't thought of? Because our lives are once again at the precipice of little sleep and less hope.

Oh, and it isn't the laws of physics in the apartment. Lamps still only turn on when plugged in, and I dropped a piece of buttered bread this morning. It landed butter side down. So physics, in order.

Its okay, its really okay, pretty little birdies, its gonna be okay

That’s a rough translation of what I’ve been singing in Lithuanian to Baby A on our evening walks when she’s blowing off steam from the day. I imagine I’ll still have to sing it sometimes, once we leave the hospital and start going outside, on stimulating tram rides or to restaurants full of people.

But for now, it is okay, really okay, and no need for the song in a few days. We’ll go home soon to try out her new sleep pattern. Turns out she slept long on breastmilk, too. So, I can continue to breastfeed at least partially. This makes me happy.

The nurse who keeps “suggesting” that we switch to formula and I stop breastfeeding, she doesn’t make me so happy. When we first got to the hospital and they asked us what we wanted, we said to know if she is in pain or sick, to help her sleep better. And I said that I would like to continue breastfeeding but only if it wasn’t stressful for her (meaning, allergies from my milk, painful reflux). Somehow this nurse has managed to hear “I’m willing to stop” and no more. She keeps trying to make A go longer and longer between meals, instead of keeping in mind that I need to feed some minimum amount of times per day to keep my milk production up. She switched to a larger nipple on the bottle this morning while I was still at home. Again, that’s not going to help A keep breastfeeding contently. And I’m sick of the “well she gets frustrated on the breast” argument. This nurse had no qualms trying to force feed her when she first got there, and made her scream, or to put her to nap while she was screaming in protest. Or to leave her cry for a few minutes in the crib during the day to learn to play on her own. Woman, stop messing with my baby to make her what you want. You wonder why I come back so soon in the morning? I don’t trust you to help me keep breastfeeding safe. Or to give my baby enough attention, quite frankly.

I don’t want to stop holding her for more hours a day than this nurse would approve of. I don’t want her to get used to eating a lot really fast, every 5 hours. She still has reflux, the spit-up kind, and that doesn’t help it. And, damn it…..I. WANT. TO. BREASTFEED.

It doesn’t hurt Amelija, it doesn’t do her harm, it gives us time together, I can produce enough, and when she is still hungry I am happy to supplement. But I am sick of feeling selfish. I want to breastfeed. Is this clear? Is the phrasing confusing somehow? I want to breastfeed. That is my business, as long as the baby gets enough food. Not the nurse’s business, not someone else’s business. This is my relationship with my daughter, and if she agrees to breastfeed, I want to keep doing it. And since we are training her to sleep better, I am allowed to try to train her to feed more calmly. Jesus, I’m sick of apologizing.

I guess I just had to get to this point. I said it. I’m done.

She has slept for 4 and 5 hours at a time the last many nights, by the way. Now I need to retrain myself to do the same.

I guess it is time to cut my hair.

I’ve been waiting, see. I got this horrible cut from a “master” stylist at a salon here just before baby A came into the world. I had had a pixie cut from last year that was growing out, and a Chicago stylist had done a great job cutting just enough to make my hair look great again but allow the top to grow. Well, Mr. MasterStylist listened to my wishes and proceeded to “texture” my hair on top and give it options for sticking straight out in back. Um, yeah. Wow. That is almost exactly the opposite of what I would have chosen, buddy. I guess “master” means “worked for this company for more than a year,” and is not used in the same way as in terms like “mastery learning,” “master’s degree,” or pretty much any other terms that indicate knowing what the hell you are doing.

Anyway, as the last 4 months have gone by, sleepless and clouded, and I wash my hair maybe every 3 days and have forgotten which end of a dryer to point at it, it has gotten longer. I’ve gone from still cursing under my breath at Mr.MasterStylist to just looking for a hair clip to pull back the bangs. Stylish? No. Cute? Nope. Matching my 3 rotating tops and pants that I’ve worn for the last three months. Definitely. It looks particularly well suited to my furry blue robe and mismatched pajamas.

And I’ve been waiting. For that day. The day we walked out of a doctor’s office, pharmacy, or hospital with Baby A (hmm….there’s a pattern), or she woke up on month 3 and suddenly things were better. That she had slept for more than 3 hours, 2 hours, 1 hour, and then 45 min, 30 min, 30 min all night. Or that she no longer woke herself up every 20 minutes during those longer stretches or her naps. Someone would confirm my theory about allergies, and I would cut out nuts and bananas from my diet. After all, the kid wakes up around bananas, who needs them? Or the reflux medication would kick in and we would all wake up after 4 hours of sleep one night. Or something. Anything.

She would still be her alert, curious, overstimulated, sensitive self. We would still need to include these traits in our life and not just stop taking her needs into account. But we would get to go out with friends and their babies. I might finally move my bed time to 9pm and still get a good night’s sleep. By which I’m talking more than one stretch of 4 hours. She might start to like the stroller. Things would get…lighter. My heart included. There would be room to breathe in our lives and the breaths could be deep again.

And I would go down to that salon near the bookstore downtown and get my hair cut. It would be short still, but something cute that I would have a few minutes to style on the mornings I wanted to. When we went out. Because, as I said, we’d start going out again. Outside. I might pull some other clothes out of the closet even. Goodness.

But here we are at the Children’s Hospital for 3 days, and they’ve monitored her waking, sleeping and eating. I’ve slept in a spare bed in a day clinic, and breastfed her. I’ve walked the halls with her and played on the floor with her. She has sat on my lap with her intent little gaze while I spoke with the doctors for an hour. Ok, she had a few things to say, too. The nurses have looked for, and not found, any signs of reflux. They are usually the ones to convince the doctors. Allergies, also no signs. The wheezing that has been a constant companion of hers since we can remember has been diagnosed as harmless, non-painful, baby-reflux. She is learning to fall asleep a bit faster (and less often during the day) and in a crib. She is charming the pants off of everyone, as usual, and generally enjoying her stay (except for that force feeding incident with the nurse which will not be tolerated – by her or me – again).

And in long conversations with the doctors, I’m letting go. I’m giving up. It isn’t going to get better. She may just be a child that needs 9 hours of sleep a day. And the best we may be able to do is to hire good, qualified helpers so that we can get back out there once in a while, and work on helping her sleep faster, and eat more less often. That’s it.

Last night I grabbed my things from that spare room, went down to the nurses’ station and told them I was going to the parents’ dorm a few blocks away to sleep. It was time to get some rest while I knew she was in good hands, instead of staying close to breastfeed and get woken by snoring roommates. There was no more I could do, no more videos of wheezing to show the doctors, no more theories of allergies to run by anyone. Nothing. Done. All we had was one glorious night 5 days ago when we tried her on only formula, when she slept soundly between wake-ups. And even that effect started wearing away after 24 hours. And although the doctors really did listen to all our data and that incident, there was nothing they were aware of that could explain that as any more than a fluke.

I still think it is something, but I’m so tired. Tired of charging windmills. I need to sleep now, so I can be the best mom possible to my little firecracker. To help her learn to navigate the world exactly as she is. To deal with the people who won’t be so happy about what a strong willed kid she is. Sure I’m sad. It feels like I couldn’t be her knight in shining armor, after all. But I know I am still her advocate, and I guess, for a few days, I was even her mama bear.

So, no miracles. I guess it is time to get my hair cut, and accept this different, less shiny solution.