Sleepless No More...I Hope!

The past couple of months have been wracked with difficult nights. Not only has the stuntman not wanted to go to sleep but he's been waking up once or twice a night. We'd go a full week without incident, and then just as the pattern was getting established he'd start all over again.

To say it was frustrating would be an understatement. 

I'm a pretty high energy person and can usually get by on a couple of hours of sleep without a problem. I've been known to do this for days or even weeks on end but usually with a purpose like a trade show or something that would keep me so busy that I wouldn't notice the exhaustion. 

At the end of whatever the event was, I'd crash for a day and get the sleep I needed. If you've known me for any period of time, you'll know that this was my standard means of existence. 

This is no longer the case...

With a child that was only sleeping for 3-4 hours at a time - intermittently, I was unable to ever feel like I was rested. The worst part was that we had no idea when his bad nights would strike. 

The final straw came about a week ago when he had a particularly horrid night and was up at 11:00,       1:00 am, 3:30 am, 6:30 am and finally at 8. He would not lie down in his crib and spent most of the night on my chest in the recliner. By the time that night was over I felt like I'd been dragged through a knothole and didn't look much better either! 

Many of my friends and my mom, insisted that I call the doctor, which I did. 

The nurse called me back to discuss what was going on and said that he really should see a doctor, since he'd had a cold lately, they were concerned about his ears. Ok that makes sense but that wouldn't account for the previous months of turmoil. Anyway...

I threw myself together - even managed a shower - changed the kids into regular clothes and headed out. 

Our regular pediatrician wasn't in that day so he was seen by another doctor who after checking his ears, eyes, nose and throat declared him to be in perfect health. While this is a great and wonderful thing for which I am eternally grateful, this declaration will not garner sleep for any of us. 

She did say that if he is teething that I should use ibuprofen instead of Tylenol because it will help with the swelling that accompanies teething. She then went on to say that when he has his episodes, we could give him a teaspoon of Maalox and see if he settles down. If that works then they could prescribe Zantac for him. 

I called hubby on the way home and gave him the report and asked that he pick up the Maalox on his ride home from work. He couldn't find it but did arrive with a bottle of liquid Rolaids. We gave him both the liquid Rolaids and ibuprofen that night and every night since.

We have had six consecutive full nights of sleep! 

Our routine now involves putting the bottles of milk in the microwave to warm them and giving the stuntman his bedtime cocktail of ibuprofen and liquid Rolaids. Hubby heads to the sofa with the engineer and I take the stuntman up to the rocking recliner in the bedroom. 

We do this because the stuntman is too easily distracted by any form of stimulation. Doesn't matter if it's the television, the cat walking across the room or his brother breathing, anything will take his attention away from the task of falling asleep. 

For some reason when I try to put the engineer down, he wakes up. I seem to have better luck with the stuntman and hubby has better luck with the engineer. Once their bottles are finished or they are out, whichever comes first, we put them down for the night in their cribs. 

I can always tell when hubby is bringing the engineer up to bed by the sounds of the toys he collides with on his way to the stairs. One particularly distinctive sound is that of the Leap Frog Turtle who has these gears on his shell. Each gear has a different number of bugs on it. If you push on the gear it talks. 

The other night I hear, "Three bees buzzing. Bzzz, Bzzz, Bzzz" as he kicked the turtle. 

Oh good, hubby's on his way upstairs. 

Not realizing that the poor little thing was still in front of him he hit it again this time making it sing, "My friends are traveling on my back..."

Oh. My. Gawd!!! I can't laugh, I can't laugh, I can't laugh! I'm going to wake the stuntman! 

The kid is a champion power-napper! He can be asleep for five minutes and if woken up, will be awake for another three hours. Each night when we climb into the chair I boot up Lullaby World's Lullabies For Babies To Go To Sleep on You Tube. Not only is it visually interesting it is mind numbing and helps the stuntman achieve the perfect level of trance that lets him pass out in obtain a very deep sleep. 

Thank goodness too because the combination of noise from downstairs and my giggling would certainly wake him up. 

Hubby reads my blog so he knows that I pick on him about his clumsiness. He can't deny it and will even make comments about whether or not what he's done will end up on the world wide web. Some of what I post actually seems to impact him albeit not always in a good way.

Back in August, I wrote about his 18-inch disease. (See Shiny) Right after that post I caught him standing in front of the sink, coffee mug in hand trying to decide if he was going to put it in the sink or actually open the dishwasher.

I laughed.

His mug ended up in the sink.

His 18-inch disease improved for a little while but honestly not very long.

Last weekend, after he finished his coffee, headed over to the sink to put his coffee cup in it. I had cooked breakfast, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher but there was still a bunch of stuff in the sink that needed to be hand-washed.

I heard this loud, aggravated sigh come from the direction of the sink and when I asked what was wrong he said that there was so much stuff in the sink that there was no room for his mug. I replied that he could put it in the dishwasher, which is where it belonged anyway.

"I can't," he replied with a wicked gleam in his eye. "I have that disease."