gearhead mama :: July

As in, I’m getting it! Overall things have been going well with Sophie, but she’s gassy just like her sister. It’s not like she spends hours screaming in pain, but it’s just bad enough to disturb her sleep and therefore mine. Add in my own long-standing insomnia issues, and some nights I was only getting 2 or 3 hours of sleep. If I got 5 I felt lucky.

This was mind-numbingly painful for me, and my days were pretty fucking miserable. I was also an awful parent, constantly butting heads with M and resorting to tactics I really don’t agree with (punishment, bribes, coercion).

I tried everything I could think of to help Sophie – craniosacral therapy, chiropractic, homeopathy, NAET and the dreaded elimination diet (which thankfully resolved the reflux, but not the gas). I finally just quit trying. My healer thinks the universe is trying to teach me that not everything is my responsibility, that it’s not my job to “fix” things, that I can stop trying to figure everything out, stop trying to be perfect, and just be. I have to say I agree with her, but when trying to manage an infant and almost 3-year-old on 2 hours of sleep, I really didn’t give a flying fuck about lessons from the universe. I just wanted less gas and more sleep!

But I did decide to quit doing everything. I stopped making appointments and ceaselessly searching for a way to “solve” this “problem”. And about 2 weeks ago I stopped using the homeopathics because they didn’t seem to be helping anyway. I even started venturing off the elimination diet. But then I was rewarded with about 5 really hard nights. Again I started wondering what I had done “wrong” and how I could “fix” things. I know this is not a healthy mindset, but it did occur to me that the bad nights started around the time I stopped the homeopathics. Hmmmm. I started them up again, and huh, maybe they were helping after all. And things started to get better. And then things got really good, and now it seems like the gas is essentially gone, and – get this – for the last three nights, Sophie, at almost 12 weeks old, has slept for 6-8 hours straight. No waking, no nursing, just fussing once or twice, which is quickly resolved by re-binking. (Yeah, I swore I wouldn’t go that route again, but you gotta do what you gotta do.)

No way have I even started to make up all the sleep I’ve lost in the last few months, but jesus does it feel good to get 7 straight hours of sleep. I don’t think M slept 4 straight hours until she was over a year old. This? This feels decadent. Luxurious. Practically criminal.

I don’t know if it will continue, although I have to admit I desperately hope it does. With sleep like that, I can do this. I can manage, function, not dissolve into the evil screaming mother with three heads (one of which spins 360 degrees while spewing fire). It still isn’t easy, but it’s at least doable.

(Although everything is on hold while I wait for the dust to settle after my huge dietary transgressions yesterday … I ate three basil, tomato, mozzarella sandwiches (first wheat and dairy in two months) and I also had a chocolate cupcake (first chocolate and eggs in two months). Sophie seemed unusually uncomfortable about 24 hours later, although it seemed to pass (ha ha) fairly quickly. So I am crossing my fingers and holding my breath that it was an isolated incident and not related to the food. I can’t tell you how badly I want to be able to eat again.)

And I have to thank mb as well, for her mention of the Kanoe hammock on her blog. I have been eyeing hammocks since I was pregnant, but couldn’t decide what to get. With her endorsement, I made the plunge and bought a Kanoe, and I think it is also part of the reason for these long stretches of sleep. I heartily recommend it.

Now. If I could just figure out how to get her to take her naps in it, I would be happy. Right? Isn’t that how life is? I just need “this” (fill in the blank) and then I’ll be happy. Heh heh. One of these days I’ll figure out how to just be. Maybe.

And while we wait (for hell to freeze over) here are some recent pictures.

She has the most awesome smile, and we have been seeing a lot of it these days. She’s a very happy baby.