for crying out loud

do you hear that?  my heart breaking.  everyone and their mamas warned me when i was pregnant about not getting sleep with a newborn.  but no one said a word about crying it out/sleep training.  why did i think babies just fell asleep when they got sleepy? in high school,  i babysat my cousins every single day since they were born but why do i not ever remember putting them down for naps being so difficult and torturous?  needless to say, owen's sleep habit has completely changed since coming home from choc.  he's decided the only way he'll fall asleep is on my breast and wake up at midnight, 3am, 5am.  he wants my breast not when he's hungry but when he's hungry AND tired.  he won't even take a bottle from me.  luckily, he'll take it when ap feeds him.  it's like he knows that i have these milk jugs and makes a bee line for it whenever he wants to eat and sleep.  i know it's a bad habit to fall asleep while nursing.  but lately, it's been my saving grace as he just won't fall asleep otherwise.  he won't have any of the eat-play-sleep pattern.  he will eat-sleep-play.  what this all means is that my breasts are busy twice as they should be.  i am bonded to owen like 18 hours out of 24 hours in a day.  that....is not normal.  and it's driving me up the wall.  i cannot do anything other than bf, wash pumps, grab a quick bite, and play w/owen the short time he is awake.  the worst part of it all is that when he does fall asleep on my breast and i take him to put him down in his bassinet, he wakes up!  then i struggle to hold him back to sleep or back he goes to my breast.  so as you can see, most of my day is spent either fake bf'ing or holding him.  something's gotta give.  and that give is him cio. 

we've decided to go cold turkey and let him cry it out.  ha - and we failed the first try yesterday.  ap and i sat in our living room holding each other on the verge of tears (i did cry - ap was literally tearing up).  it didn't help that ap would throw me these puppy faces every 10 minutes.  he's a bigger sucker than i am!  owen cried for over an hour and we had to go pick him up.

right now - owen is on hour 2 of cio as i type this.  i've locked myself in our bedroom, tv volume turned up, going back and forth from laker game and the bachelor, with a cup of yogurt and korean pear to keep me and my mouth occupied.  i called my sister crying about an hour ago.  she said to zone it out and stay strong. 

today's ap's friday so he'll be warned when he comes home soon - be prepared for a long 2 days off.  i'm determined to get through this.  i know 2 hours is a long time but i'm praying it gets easier w/ each cio. 

i've asked other moms i know how they go through it!! they weren't kidding when they said moms have amnesia because they go on to have more children by choice, forgetting all about these insanely difficult days.  it's honestly the most difficult thing i've ever gone through.  i looked at ap dead in the eyes this morning and said we're done having babies.  it's worse than L&D, worse than breastfeeding, worse than studying for the SAT's.  but you know what, it's really not worse than your precious newborn prepare for surgery, so i keep telling myself that we CAN get through this! 

please pray that i don't jump out of our building in these next few days.  if we succeed...this is my reward...

 

{update: owen failed to fall asleep on his own after 4 hours of cio.  i went to pick him up, change his diaper, nursed him at midnight.  i put him back in his crib awake but ridiculously sleepy.  and whaddayaknow...he fell asleep after 3 minutes of fussing.  he woke up crying at 3:30am.  checked his diaper.  clean.  i didn't pick him up, didn't nurse him.  he cried til 7:30am....all three of have major dark circles and bags under our eyes.  we went for his shots this morning.  the ped recommends we keep at cio.  i asked her wide-eyed "even if he cries over 4 hours??"  yup.  all babies are different.  we got lucky w/a stubborn fighter.  stopping now will only confuse him more.  owen knocked out w/o the usual fuss in his carseat on the way back home.  the kid got 3 hours of sleep last night...i'm surprised he's not ready to kill us.  i put him in his crib when we got home - he started crying.  i bottle fed him (really contemplating bottle feeding him exclusively since i have all that breast milk and he's so breast spoiled), held him, rocked him until he got drowsy.  i put him down in the crib.  i jumped in the shower.  he fell asleep on his own for the first time after cio 45 mins.  it's progress in my book.}