Monday, March 19, 2007

Sleep II

The last two nights have been much better. Three to four night wakings isn't great, but it sure beats heck out of 10 night wakings.

She goes down pretty easily at 7:30, and is up again maybe around 9, maybe not until 11 or 11:30. Last night she was up at 8:45, when G went in and patted her, sat her up to make sure she didn't need to burp, and then patted her again. She resettled and slept until almost 1am. Then she nursed well, spitting out the nipple after I gave her the second breast. She slept until 3:30, when she cried for a couple of minutes, I patted her, but she cried more, so I tucked her arm back into her blanket and rolled her onto her other side. She immediately went back to sleep and slept until 5am, when I nursed her. G got a wakeful babe at about 5:30, they chatted and cooed and caressed until about 6, then she slept cuddled next to me until 9am. Really not too bad of a night.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Garden and Spring

Or Spring and Garden?

An amazing day today. It felt like summer (only comfortably warm, not hot). We got so much done, it feels great. Most of the backyard garden is tilled, but we do have more compost and peat to put in.

Gary hung the air-chairs, it feels like summer...

Sunday....
The back and front gardens are tilled, only three areas left to do: the front strip, the back strip, and the area under the front windows. The back strip and under the windows have to be started almost from scratch (at least they are bare dirt, no grass or landscape rocks), then tilled, soil removed, walls built and compost and peat added. It's a lot of work, thankfully they're going to be summer beds rather than spring beds.

We hope to get compost and peat this week, and I can get the spring plantings done before the end of the week (cross your fingers).

Weather

I guess I should record for the sake of posterity (or myself, down the road) that the last few weeks have been mostly quite warm and lovely. Week before last, we had our mama/kid playgroup down at Fossil Creek park on Friday morning and it was really quite nice. The week leading up to it was even lovelier, and this past week has been so-so. Some days very warm and nice, some days cold and blustery and overcast. It seems like the general pattern is to have cold, overcast mornings with some wind, and then have it burn off and be warm and pleasant in the afternoon and evening. The weather is still rather fickle, but overall it's been a great change from the cold, wet, dreary winter we've had. Thankfully.

Sleep

I'm getting to the point where I just can't handle the every 45 to 90 minute wakings all night. So I've gone back to reviewing Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution. I am going to give it more of a fair shake this time, and stick to it for at least a month before I say it doesn't work. I am getting the baby more regular naps, and she's starting to get a bit better at taking them, and will even go down with just patting rather than just nursing down. Sometimes (every second or third day) she will even take a two or three hour nap. That is amazing.

She is going to bed at about 745pm now, which is a huge change (from 10 or 11pm). The first week we did this, she started sleeping very well, from 8pm to midnight or so, and then almost until 4am, and then again until almost 7am. It was unreal and I felt so rested! This week we are back to old patterns. She sleeps from 745 to 845 to 945 to 1045 to 1130, when I nurse her, then she sleeps until 130am to 2am to 3am to 4am, when I nurse her, then she sleeps until 6am if I am lucky, and nurses almost constantly until 7 or 730.

I have come very close a couple of nights to losing my temper. It makes me so angry to get no sleep, and the baby isn't even hungry, she just doesn't know how to settle herself. Well, she obviously can figure it out, b/c the first week she did so well.

Last night I came to bed at 9pm so I could get some rest before she woke up, but I just couldn't make myself sleep, waiting for her to wake up. And she did, every 45 minutes or so. I nursed her at 1130, then she slept until 1am, when I patted her back down and went to get Papa for his shift. He tells me the baby slept from then until 215, when she screamed until 415 (I'm sure he was patting her and singing to her), when she just *poof* went to sleep until 7am, when he came to get me. Poor guy, he took a 1 hr nap and got up at 8.

I will keep at it, keep giving her good naps (as good as she will take) on a schedule, keep putting her down to bed at the same time, keep putting her down 'amost asleep', keep nursing her every four hours (or when I hear the special nursing cry she makes when hungry), and keep patting her down to sleep when she's not hungry. We'll see who survives. Bleh.

Organizing

Our neighbor just couldn't stand our house any more. She decided that in return for my giving her some beading lessons (circular flat peyote), she would do a chore or two for me. Sounded perfectly fair and reasonable. But a chore or two turned into reorganizing our living room. It is SO much better and more comfortable now and G's desk is downstairs in 'his' room along with his instruments and the guest bed. We have unpacked 3/4 of our books and this gives us room for other boxes to be opened and reorganized (and purged!) and stacked down where the book boxes were. G is working on cleaning up the garage now that we have got rid of a lot of boxes and assorted junk that was in there.

We hope that soon the garage will be a tidy (or at least tidy-able) space. I want to get the back patio cleaned up for summer, as well, so we can enjoy the space comfortably.