I'm exhausted. Most immediately, I'm exhausted from hauling a friend's whole life from one townhouse to a townhouse across the street. That was a lot more boxes than I was expecting...and it was about 20 degrees warmer than I hoped it would be. But more long term, the exhaustion comes from many, many, many nights of interrupted sleep. June goes through phases where she'll be an excellent sleeper and we won't hear a peep from her for 13 hours or more. Then she'll go through phases where we see or hear her every 3-4 hours. When she was younger (and we only had one child), we used to allow her to crawl into bed with us. This was particularly a habit when I was pregnant with Ruben and too exhausted to argue or get my huge butt out of bed to put her back into her own bed. Thankfully, this habit has been sufficiently broken. Every once and a while we'll pull her into bed if it is near 5 or 6 in the morning and one or the other of us is already up. The last few nights we've played the game of wanting Mom to lay down with June in the middle of the night after she's woken up and come to our room. This is one of those behaviors that I'm sure every single parenting book has an opinion on. Should you or should you not lay down with you child while they fall asleep. Since I don't read those books, I'm not sure what they actually say, but I know what mine would say if I wrote it. If you lay down with you child while they fall asleep, he/she will enjoy the snuggle time and may become dependent on that snuggle to fall asleep or may just really like that snuggle and chide you into doing it every single time he/she needs to fall asleep. I love holding my child while she falls asleep, but I also don't want to lay down with her every single time. I think I need to work on some boundaries or follow through issues, but for now I'm nearly content with just dealing with the tears sometimes and laying down at other times.
This is really the same issue I have with Ruben. I know books out there advocate not nursing your child to sleep because then they require that activity in order to fall asleep. But have you ever nursed your child to sleep! Because it is the most awesome, intimate time. I find it a great time to look at Ruben and marvel at his beauty (handsomeness). I pray for him and wish God's blessings on his every movement and every moment. I enjoy the stillness. So part of me really wishes I would have established the routine of making him fall asleep on his own by not nursing him down, but that other part of me relishes those moments I've spent holding my son while he wanders off to dreamland.
Since I know I'm just a mom, and make plenty of mistakes, here my plan for the next few weeks. I know I need to start sleeping uninterrupted to be a better mom and I am sure that my kids are both capable of sleeping through the night. I will continue to nurse Ruben to sleep, and I will lay down with June on those nights when she's especially tired and can't fall asleep without me. However, when Ruben wakes up in the middle of the night (as he has done one or twice each night for the last 6 weeks) I will allow him to cry it out and not get up to nurse him down again. If this happens to wake up June, I will walk her back to her bed and see if I can avoid laying down with her. If they both end up screaming, I will lay down with June in her bed because Ruben needs to learn to sleep through the night. Plus, June's bed is way more comfortable than the chair in Ruben's room.
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