Back before Ruby was born, I used to joke all the time that I didn’t care what kind of baby I had, as long as it was a better sleeper than Ronan.
Fussy, gassy, colicky, needy, whiny… I’d take it as long as we got sleep.
The first week or so with Ruby was as expected. Wake, change, nurse, burp, sleep. I didn’t really care how often it happened, because sleep was at the end of the cycle.
However, in the last few days, we’ve had a new routine.
Wake. Change. Nurse. Burp. Cry. Rock. Walk. Bounce. Change. Cry. Cuddle. Swaddle. Unswaddle. Cry. Nurse. Change. Rock. Cry.
Notice the conspicuous lack of sleep.
This has been our routine from around 2 am until nearly 6 am. Yes, that’s right, it takes me over 4 hours to get her back to sleep, at which point I imagine half the problem is over exhaustion!
I don’t know what’s going on with her. I can feel gas rolling around in her tummy, and she clenches up like she’s in pain. She cries like she’s in pain. She breaks my heart. But NOTHING that I do seems to help her. Bicycle legs, Mylicon, Gripe water, nursing – none of it helps. I get stuck in this frustrating cycle where everything I do takes so long to calm her down and get her close to sleep again, that we’ve come back around to another ‘need’. She will be about to fall asleep, and then need her diaper changed. We will walk around until she’s calm and then lay back down to bed and she will need to eat again. I get so heart broken and frustrated that I can’t help but cry with her.
I have sent Brock up to the guest room because we spend hours doing this… and someone has to get up with Ronan in the morning. (By guest room, of course, I mean the mattress that is currently on the floor in what will become Ruby’s nursery… if I ever get around to completing it.) He needs to sleep, but it contributes even more to my feeling of loneliness and isolation.
Today, I ate nothing but bland food, to see if something in my diet is upsetting her. If we have another sleepless night, tomorrow I will begin a trial of cutting dairy out of my diet.
If this goes on much longer, I will bring it up with the pediatrician. I can’t stand to see her so upset, so unable to sleep.
And I wouldn’t mind getting a little sleep myself.
