JUST SLEEP!!

Tonight I have a lot of emotions.

Bitterness, frustration, anger, fatigue, and even a bit despondent. 

I am having a really hard time not blaming my child's sleep problems on our life circumstances.

If only we had a job and our own place, and money so I could have bought books to prepare more fully for having an infant.

But then again, I didn't even think to buy baby sleep books before he was born. So even if we had had money for them, I probably wouldn't have known to buy and read them.

But since I have been reading them, if we had our own place, I wouldn't have to worry about the temperature of the room, whether my mom would hear my baby cry and judge my parenting choices, and maybe consistency wouldn't be such a struggle for me.

If only my baby didn't have reflux and didn't cry so much when he was so little then I wouldn't have developed such "bad habits" regarding his sleep. I can't control that one, but what if?

If only my husband had a job and our lives were more structured, then having a consistent and predictable schedule would be easier. 

Are sleep associations really that bad? Is it normal for my baby to be waking up every 2-3 hours at this age? 

JUSTICE!

After EIGHT LONG months, we finally got David's wages in the mail!

We are especially grateful to the state of Texas for chasing after David's former boss and strong arming him into paying us the money he owed us. 

David and I are SO GLAD to have this chapter of our lives CLOSED. It has been nothing but a nightmare. Literally. It was a learning experience that I hope we never face again.

The Latest in Our World

Wow, it has been almost a month since I last blogged!

Let's see, what's been going on the last month?

My world has been consumed by motherhood, and as busy (and utterly exhausted) as that makes me, it doesn't seem like there is much to say!

Jackson went to the doctor yesterday for a little cough and congestion that ended up just being allergies, and he weighed in at 17 lb 8 oz!! My chunky little baby! Or as the doctor called it, "healthy." haha

He also rolled over from his tummy to his back-- but he's only done it once! I can't get him to do it again! BUT, he has been practicing rolling from his back to his side, and he loves the freedom that it gives him. I find him ending up in new positions and not in the same place I set him down. He is finding mobility (even in the smallest degree) so fun and exciting!

He loves to suck and chew on his fingers, wrist, or fist while he plays. He loves to put his hands together and hold them. It's so cute :)

Daddy loves to put Jackson on his shoulders, and Jackson loves to use David's ears as handle bars!

He loves to bat at things that hang above him, and he loves to be kissed on his jaw-- it makes him smile and sometimes even giggle!

Jackson loves to use his voice! He is saying "words" like ah-goo, gah, ooohh, gah-gah. And he has figured out how to scream. I've even heard the "m" sound out of him a few times. It's so fun to watch them discover new things!

Jackson has also discovered his feet! He loves to try and grab them, and sometimes he actually gets them!

About a week ago I noticed that he rubs his eyes when he is tired. So cute!

David is so excited to take Jackson fishing at Yellowstone in a couple of weeks, he couldn't resist showing Jackson the fish at the Rainforest Cafe at Grapevine Mills!

Jackson likes to watch youtube videos with his daddy. Mommy isn't crazy about this practice, but sometimes it gives her a break so she can do crazy things like, oh ya know, take a shower or eat a snack because she hasn't eaten anything all day except a bowl of cereal.

Jackson is still not the greatest sleeper, he still wakes up at least 2 times a night. His longest stretch of sleep so far was 6.5 hours, but from 8pm- 2:30am. That was a good night! The early morning hours are still rough. He usually wakes up around 5 or 5:30, and then sleeps for another hour or so and is usually up for the day around 6:30. I usually end up taking him to bed with me just to milk the most sleep out of the morning as possible. Sometimes I get lucky enough to stay in bed until 8.

I have been trying hard to get him on some sort of an eating/sleeping schedule, but it seems like there is always something that gets in the way. Sometimes it's just my sheer exhaustion. I like to think that Jackson is a harder baby than most. It makes me feel better about being so tired and feeling so out of control. It will get easier, I hope.

Parenting Advice?

As I've entered the realm of parenthood, I've realized quickly that the world is SOO ready to give you advice on how to raise your child.

While I was pregnant, I was so consumed in preparing for giving birth, stressing about money/unemployment/moving that I didn't even want to think about what I would do once the baby actually arrived. I had picked up Dr. Sears' "The Baby Book" and thought I had everything I needed. Everything I read in The Baby Book seemed just fine and in line with how I wanted to parent.
No one had mentioned or recommended any other books at all, so I was flying blindly once Jackson actually came!

This is probably because I was very resistant to any mention of the impending sleep deprivation as I perceived these comments as pessimistic. (I still do!) I knew it was likely what my future held, but I didn't want to think about it. No one had offered any tips at all until after I dared to complain to the internet about how tired I was.

After the recommendations started coming, I sent David all over Plano going to the different libraries with a long list of books to pick up for me. I soon realized that EVERYONE has an opinion about parenting, and they range the gamut from extreme attachment parenting, to crying it out and everywhere in between. Everyone has an opinion on co-sleeping, self-soothing, baby wearing, rocking your baby to sleep, demand feeding, parent-directed feeding, scheduled feeding, swings, etc. And these are only BABY ISSUES!

So the confusion began. I really wanted one book to just tell me how to get my baby to sleep better! Where is my book of solutions?! Which book is RIGHT? Which book is WRONG? I wanted a step-by-step, day-by-day, what-to-do-in-this-situation kind of book that had all the answers that pertained to MY child. A book that allowed me to do all the things with my child that I wanted, and avoid all the things that I would never dream of using for my child.

No such book exists. At least not for me!

After at least a month of reading several books, many of which repeated many of the same tactics for getting babies to sleep better, I finally decided that:

1. It is a WONDERFUL idea to read books for educational purposes.
2. I can't follow everyone's advice at once. (As much as I'd like to.)
3. It is MY child, so I will do what I feel MY child needs at this time in their life, and what I'm comfortable with.
4. I will try ideas that appeal to me, and keep what works, and forget what doesn't!
5. If I do all that I can to make my baby comfortable and happy, he will sleep longer stretches when he is ready to! 

Now, lest you think that I've given up and resigned myself to sleepless nights, I haven't! We have come a long way and although I am still very tired and have to drag myself out of bed every morning, things have changed SO much since we brought Jackson home from the hospital.

At about 10 days old, Jackson "woke up" and realized he was hurting! For about two weeks, we tried everything for hours at a time to calm down our SCREAMING baby. I was lucky to get ONE three-hour stretch out of him at night, while he woke every one or two hours the rest of the night. Not to mention that it took him 30+ minutes to eat. I didn't get a lot of sleep. 

Then we discovered that he has reflux AND a milk protein sensitivity. 

He is a totally different baby now. He still fusses and cries on occasion, but he coos and laughs and lays happily looking around. And his cries do not communicate pain. Actually, he doesn't even usually cry to get my attention, he just squawks. If I ignore his squawks long enough, he will get to a full-blown cry. His wailing from pain early on was so hard on me emotionally... It is so hard to see your baby in pain. 

Considering where we came from, I am more than grateful for the nights when Jackson only wakes up 3 times. At least I'm able to get in a couple of full REM cycles in every night, even if I'm waking up in between them.

I went through a phase where I felt like it was my fault that he doesn't sleep well, and that I was doing something wrong because my NEWBORN doesn't sleep longer than 4 hours at a time. He is gradually able to sleep longer, and as he matures it will continue to get better. I am happy, my baby is happy, and that is all that matters!

June 4th: Our First Anniversary!

David and I had a wonderful day together for our first anniversary. For one day, we allowed ourselves to forget our troubles and celebrate our joyous union and to reminisce on the good memories that we've shared together in our first year as a married couple, and how we were brought together.

Honeymooners at Disneyworld

We're pregnant!!

We thought of all our many blessings-- that David was brought to Texas, that we had callings that brought us together, and that we were both humble enough to listen when God was urging us to date. We were so blessed to have the means to have a beautiful wedding, and loving family and friends who helped in every way to make it all that we hoped for. We were blessed that David had a job for the first six months of our marriage, and we were so blessed to be able to start our family right away. We were blessed to have loving parents on both sides of our family that have been so willing to help us through the hard times with unemployment, pregnancy, moving, and finally a new baby.

In our first year, we had nothing, yet we had everything.

We had no money, we had no job, but we had everything that matters. We had our God, we had our love, and we had each other. And thanks to the government and our parents, we had a roof over our head and food to eat!

My mother offered to watch Jackson so that David and I could get out and celebrate for a few hours.

So excited to be going out!

We decided to eat lunch at Rudy's BBQ, which is where we had our very first date two years ago. It was so wonderful to put our worries aside and enjoy a day to celebrate.

Yummy Brisket, Creamed Corn and Beans!

I even wore the same shirt that I wore on our first date!

Then we went to Northpark and to Tiffany & Co. to get my ring cleaned. We looked around and daydreamed about the day when we would be able to buy other things from Tiffany & Co. and not just come to get my ring cleaned. We can only hope that we'll see good enough days in the future for that to become a reality.

When David and I bought the Ring: Nov 5, 2010

After Northpark, we hurried home to our baby because my mom had somewhere to be. We got Jackson to sleep, and David went and picked up some chinese from Little Sichuan, which is where we went on our SECOND first date, and then enjoyed a piece of our wedding cake that we had diligently kept in the freezer for the last year. It was delicious then, and it is delicious now! I only had a small piece since I am working to keep dairy out of my diet for Jackson. It was really good though :-)

Mmm Cumin Beef and Chicken Lo Mein!

Looks pretty good for being a year old!

Our first year of marriage was really tough. We encountered a lot of hardships that I don't care to repeat ever again, let alone all within the same 12 months. We took our anniversary as an opportunity to put the last year behind us and to hope for a better year to come. Nothing about our circumstances has changed-- we are still unemployed with a new baby and living with my parents-- but we are glad to have our first year behind us!! Here's to many more to come, for better or for worse!

Summary of May... and an Impending Anniversary

Things have been pretty hectic around here, as evidenced by the three-week-long absence of any blog posts. I have been trying to get to writing, I just haven't had much to report, let alone any time to write about it!

Jackson has been a totally different baby the last few days. In a good way! It has taken reflux medication, lots of gas drops, and taking milk out of my diet before this happy baby has surfaced more regularly.

I think milk is the real culprit behind his extreme fussiness. A milk intolerance is also known to cause the excessive spitting up/vomiting, and it also increases gas because a fussy baby tends to swallow more air while feeding. Luckily, most babies outgrow this milk intolerance by a year, if not age 2 or 3. Seeing that my dad is still intolerant to milk as an adult, I am hoping that he isn't one of the few whose intolerance lingers past toddlerhood and into childhood and adulthood.

Jackson is Mr. Smiley lately! Sometimes I swear he even laughs at me sometimes! It is fun to play with him by laughing and cooing back at him. He has quite the vocabulary of goohs and gahs and owhhs. It's so cute!

We have seen several more job opportunities come and go this month. It is extremely discouraging. It has been 6 months now, and still no job. It is sad to see our one year anniversary coming while we are unemployed and living with my parents. This is definitely not what we had hoped for our first year of marriage. However, on the bright side, we have a beautiful baby boy, and we are still very much in love. I suppose those are the only things that really matter anyways. I'm lucky to be approaching our anniversary still happy with my decision to marry him. Though temporally our first year of marriage has been less than ideal, the love we have for each other surpasses all that I had hoped for and expected to find. For that, I am grateful!

Car Seat Sleep and Job Opportunities!

After what felt like an entire week without sleep has finally (hopefully) ended. We've had two nights of decent sleep patterns, and we are all in much better moods! It is amazing how awful sleep deprivation makes you feel. In every way.

There was about 4 or so nights where Jackson was waking up, eating for 40 minutes, then taking another 20 minutes to fall back to sleep enough to put back in bed, sleeping for an hour, and repeating. He would sleep for about 2 longer stretches in a day, but it was unpredictable which nap would be a longer one. It is torture to be consistently woken up from deep sleep and never being able to complete even one REM cycle. Not to mention, a few days prior to these sleeping issues, he started with some evening colic. 3-4 hour stretches of an unconsolable baby is REALLY hard to deal with when you haven't slept hardly at all for days. Needless to say, I was at my wit's end and pretty much desperate to find a solution.

We stumbled across this solution when I had to take him the hospital for some routine blood work. After fighting sleep all morning long, he fell asleep in the car on the way home. I was so glad to see him sleeping, so I let him sleep! He ended up sleeping for like 4 hours. Then I got thinking. The longest stretches of sleep have been when he was in a reclined position, like in the bouncer or in his car seat. After realizing this pattern, we decided to conduct an experiment. Waking up 2-3 times a night felt AMAZING in comparison to the schedule we had been keeping. I got so much done the next day! We tried it again a second night, and he fell asleep at the same times and woke up at the same times. I think we've finally stumbled into a schedule that we can all live with happily! 

I'm pretty sure that he's inherited some acid reflux issues, which is why sleeping at an incline works so much better for him. It also helps him with his intestinal issues-- he is a very gassy baby! Not only does he have a TON of gas, but it is loud! My mom said it was as loud as her dad's gas. A grown man! She's asked me a few times if it was me. But nope, it was Jackson! 

That was probably the hardest week of my life. Here I have this tiny little baby that God has entrusted to me and David, and for the life of me, nothing we could do would make him feel better. Being so beyond exhausted, and on top of that, an unconsolable baby-- very stressful. 

Even with a new and improved sleep schedule, our lives are beyond chaotic. The days and nights all blend into each other and David and I can't even keep track of what day it is anymore. David totally spaced a dentist appointment on Monday, and we missed a free photography session last night that we won. Things just slip through the cracks when the days all blend together like that... 

The job opportunities keep coming-- and so do the rejections. There are about 4 potential jobs right now, but there have been countless "potentials" in the five months we've been unemployed, so we are skeptical. Of course we always hope that something works out, but we are also aware of the struggles that the video game industry is facing right now. Jobs are hard to land, and competition is stiff! 

Pray that we'll find something soon?