My baby, he don’t sleep at night

My son is a crappy sleeper.  He’s always been a crappy sleeper.  He’s up several times a night, and only puts himself back to sleep about half the time.  Don’t even start with that “cry it out” business, because that doesn’t work with him–he cries until he pukes and then I have to clean that up as well as settle him back down.

He goes to bed beautifully, but after 8:30 it’s like there’s a time bomb in the house.  Not that we have to tiptoe around or anything.  Noise doesn’t seem to wake him up at all.  But some internal thing will rouse him, and then *blam*, the bomb goes off and the dance begins.  First, we wait to see if he’ll go back to sleep.  The whole time we are listening to him cry, my husband and I are negotiating.  “Let’s wait 10 minutes.”  “No he’s really screaming, if we wait he won’t go back to sleep.”  “Well, if you go this time, I’ll go the next time.”  “Why don’t I take all tonight, and you take tomorrow?”  It’s become a huge part of our marraige, this nighttime negotiation.  We talk about it more than any other topic in our lives.  All the while we are staring at the baby monitor, willing him to fall asleep with the power of our minds.

Then, if he doesn’t magically go back to sleep (sometimes he falls asleep in mid-scream!), one of us goes up to his room and holds him until he falls back to sleep.  We’ve tried everything from not picking him up, to the cry it out/puke incident, to letting him sleep in our bed–you name it.  The pick up, hold, and put him back down “method” is the most efficient. 

This lack of sleep is starting to fray me at my edges.  When my son was a newborn, everyone thought I was depressed.  I said over and over that I was just tired.  I was only sleeping a few hours a day, and sometimes those weren’t in a row.  Now, I still look like a depressed person.  I don’t “dress” for work anymore.  I never “do” my hair.  I sort of look like an Olsen twin.  I forget things.  I’m not as sharp or witty.  All my edges are blunted because I’m so damn tired.

I put the baby to bed at 8:30, then work out for 15 minutes and take a shower and go to bed.  I don’t watch TV anymore.  Or movies.  Or read.  I have no conversation.  I’m like someone from a foreign country.

And, my husband and I, to cope, have started sleeping in different places.  Taking turns on the couch, so that one of us can get some sleep. 

But, there are some rewards in all this.  When it is my turn to diffuse the bomb, I do get delicious minutes alone in the dark with my son, his one little hand down the neck of my top because he needs to feel skin, my nose pressed to the top of his baby-scented head.