After working all day, I pick up Alexa from school. We play for an hour together and then I have to make dinner. She watches Blue’s Clues or Little Einsteins while I prepare our meals. We eat together, I clean up dinner and then it is time for Alexa’s bath. Some nights I sit next to the tub and do a little exercise with hand weights while she plays with her bath toys. It’s the only chance I have! After a long bath, I chase her around the house trying to get her dressed for bed, brush her hair and brush her teeth. We clean up her room and I make her “chocolate (greens and berries) almond milk” while she picks out 2 bedtime books. Sometimes she helps and puts the “chocolate” into her almond milk. We both crawl into her bed and read books together. “Two more books” she asks when I say THE END after book #2. Usually, I cave since it is the only time I get to snuggle with her and read with her these days. She crawls down off her bed to pick out two more books. Then it is lights out time which comes with some resistance as she begs for another book and has to go to the toilet one more time. Finally, REALLY lights out. “Mommy, don’t leave!” “Snuggle with me!” “Mommy wants to snuggle with me.” Again, I cave for two reasons. One, because when I try to leave she begins to cry hysterically begging me through gasps of air and tears to not leave her. And two, because I am perfectly aware these precious times will be gone all too soon. I know my bedtime snuggle time with her won’t last forever and this breaks my heart. However, the process isn’t that easy. She fights going to sleep, tossing and turning, throwing her kitten blanket off and then asking me over and over to put it back on her. She sings her ABC’s; begins to tell me who is a boy and a girl in our household “Camnut is a boy, Daddy is a boy, Mommy is a girl, Alexa is a girl, Acadia is a girl…”. She asks me “what’s that noise?” to every single creek and crack sound she hears. I answer her questions and quickly tell her “Shhhhh, it is time to go to sleep. Relax, close eyes.” Just as she finally begins to settle down and get quiet, POP! She sits up and tells me she has to go potty “One. More. Time.” After potty break number whatever, we crawl back into her bed and begin the settling down process all over again. Over the course of the hour to 2 hours this sleep process takes I begin to loose patience. I’m almost 34 weeks pregnant and so physically uncomfortable now. Thoughts of how I am going to handle this extensive bedtime routine while trying to take care of a newborn swarm my head. It is exhausting. I’m exhausted and distraught. Once she finally falls asleep, I sneak out of her room so I can finish cleaning up the kitchen, take out the trash and prepare her lunch for school for the next day. Then I jump on the computer to cram in a few more hours of work before finally laying down in my empty bed to relax for 30 minutes with a book or mindless TV before going to sleep. Two to three hours after I close my eyes I hear a cry. Alexa is up crying for me. She had a nightmare or maybe just woke up and found me “missing”. I can’t focus my eyes, but still stumble down the stairs into her bedroom. I open the door to find her sitting up in bed. “Lay down with me Mommy.” “Alexa”, I say, “I can’t honey, you need to go back to sleep on your own like you always have before.” “NO, MOMMY, NO! PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME! AYAYA WANTS TO COME UP STAIRS AND SLEEP IN MOMMY’S BED!” If I let her sleep in my bed, it is easier and actually pretty nice to have her next to me. But, I don’t know how it will work when Daddy is home again or when there is an infant upstairs with us too, so this makes me hesitate. If I don’t let her come up, then the power struggle begins. She cries and repeatedly gets out of bed and runs out of her room crying for me in desperation. So, what do I do? Let her sleep in my bed of course. I go back and forth with cherishing these snuggling moments and feeling the effects of the lack of sleep she is getting as well as myself. I never sleep well with her in my bed for some reason. I never have even when she was an infant. I’m up and down tons all night. Of course the pregnancy is making it worse with constant pee breaks and water chugging thirst. I am exhausted and emotional and feel like I am running out of time. Running out of time with my little Alexa and running out of time to get these sleep issues remedied before baby number 2 comes. Everyone in this house needs to get a good night sleep!
Sadly, instead of spending my 30 minutes of personal time at night connecting with the baby in my tummy or reading pregnancy/delivery books, I am spending the time reading about how to parent Alexa better. How to compassionately help her to sleep on her own again and how to compassionately set limits and compassionately discipline. I feel so unprepared for the baby’s arrival as my memory is cloudy about breastfeeding schedules and don’t even know what to expect or what to do when I go into labor. All my energy is going into Alexa. I am exhausted. I am emotional. I am breaking down. It will help when Daddy is home again, but this yachtie lifestyle will take him away from us again less than two weeks later. This is all consuming. She used to be such a good sleeper going to bed on her own, sleeping for 10+ hours a night without a peep. I'm breaking down. I don’t know what to do.
