I will say it again: Sleepless Nights Are Very Real.
I never actually thought that we would hit a truly sleepless night. Dominic was sleeping in his own crib starting the day that we brought him home. A tired baby he was, sleeping in the hospital while all the other babies cried and screamed all night long. I would look over and thank my little man for the blessing of sleep with a newborn. And when he came home, he only woke up twice per night, every few hours. I was really enjoying this schedule!
We had our difficult nights, where he'd stay up for 2 hours at a time instead of one hour. I'd get to my wits end and just lay him down in bed while I went to my room and laid down. My husband had set up a camera that he could monitor from work, and he would sit and watch Dominic and let me know if I needed to go cover him up, or if he was plain ready to get out of bed. Typically, he'd cry a little while until he fell asleep. I thought I'd seen the worst of it on nights like these, but little did I know those were the easy nights. He didn't cry while he was awake; he was just hungry, awake, and happy. It was 2AM and I was not hungry, awake, OR happy. I was sleepy and wanted to sleep!
Just recently, I've been having a good deal of trouble nursing my little one. I've started taking herbal supplements, I upped my calorie intake, I have been drinking tons of various fluids (of course water included), but still my milk production has seriously decreased. He wasn't getting any milk! So there was a new kind of night introduced here- a night of a hungry baby trying to get milk from a very pain-stricken mommy. Even moreso than staying up with him for two hours, one hour of this proved to be far more excruciating. Not only was I tired, now I had a child trying to destroy the place from which he obtains meals. OUCH!
A result of those nights led into us having to feed him formula. Most babies will just nurse more often when milk production is low; my baby destroys me and then cries and cries and cries. He won't be content until his tummy has been filled. So, we had to supplement with formula. And formula makes babies very gassy, very fussy, and seemingly constipated. (Sorry Dominic...) Just the other day, we experienced our no joke, no sleep night. We'd woken up the previous morning around 6AM. Dominic took very, very short cat naps throughout the day until early afternoon. When I say short, I mean like ten to twenty minutes every couple of hours. In the afternoon, he took one good nap for I'd say four hours. The hubs and I went out on our first official date, and some lovely friends of ours came over to babysit. They fed him, gave him a bath, played with him, and just loved on our sweet boy. At 800, he decided to go to bed. I arrived home around 830 and promptly prepared myself for bed. Surely he was going to be asleep until at LEAST 10 or 11. And I was excited at the prospect of having caught him at the beginning of his respite. Well, it didn't last long, for he awoke around 916 and could not go back to sleep. It's not that he didn't want to; it's that he couldn't. This poor boy was constipated from that time until 0430 in the morning, when he finally released his "demons." And I tell you, had he been able to do this sooner, we'd have had a nice, long evening of sleeping. He went to sleep immediately after, slept through his diaper change, and didn't open his eyes again until 0830 in the morning. My poor tired boy!
I've noticed more and more since we've been feeding him far more formula than breastmilk that he has been in more discomfort and has been sleeping less than normal. So I, once again, upped the ante and decided that I was going to let myself be in pain if it meant I'd produce more milk and make my man comfortable again. So I nursed all day yesterday. I have drank my water and taken my supplements. I'm increasing my calorie intake and I'm just going to push through this! I have already noticed a huge change. He went to sleep yesterday afternoon around 430, and did not wake up until 10PM! Daddy took him during the night, and he slept quite a bit. I took him at 0500, and we slept from 0630 until 9AM! He's taking his morning nap right now, which he went down for at 1100. It's noon :)
Sleepless nights are really, really, real. And really, really hard. I'm not gonna lie; I'm petrified to go back to work. The only place our boy is comfortable is his snugabunny, or in someone's arms. His tummy hurts so much lately that his legs must be scrunched up and belly not stretched out so he can be comfortable. He can be in a coma of a sleep, and still wake right up as soon as he's laid flat on his back. Hopefully we can find a mattress softer than the boulders of infant mattresses they sell. Because aside from the tummy aches, I think we've a comfort snob on our hands when it comes to cozy places to sleep!
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