Last night, she woke up every 2-3 hours, usually going back to sleep with the pacifier, but sometimes it took several iterations of giving her back the pacifier across 10-15 minutes. At 3am, she absolutely would not go back to sleep, so, too tired to argue, I nursed her. But she didn't nurse well; she wasn't hungry, though she did go back to sleep after nursing (and no wonder, it's like a nice warm pacifier that doesn't fall out and dribbles sweet tasty milk into her mouth). She had me awake countless times again until 7:30, when I nursed her again. Then she fell into a good deep sleep.
How different our lives would be if we had one of those babies that miraculously sleeps 12 hours a night! I'd be rested, optimistic, cheerful, energetic. Instead, I'm irritable, snappy, struggling to make it from one thing to the next in the day. I resent not being able to completely enjoy my baby, or my two little boys.
I absolutely dread what is clearly our only choice: a learning-to-sleep cycle that involves crying. And I can already tell that powerful little Katrina will stick out serious crying for a long, long time. I'd really hoped to avoid that, by teaching her early on how to fall asleep with help only from the pacifier, but that clearly hasn't worked. I don't want to start the crying-to-sleep until she's used to the crib upstairs, and that will take some time to get her room ready, but I'm making that a priority now.
Meantime, during the moments I have when I'm not completely dragging, Katrina continues to be a most delightful baby. She likes being thrown up into the air, and actually laughs right afterward, sort of a guttural baby guffaw. When she wakes up after a good nap (which fortunately she still has), she's charming and smiley and sticks her tongue out a lot and is downright exuberant.
Today I took all three kids to music class. Between me and Betsy, we had over half the children in the class! I couldn't help but be envious of sweet, sleepy baby Dylan. Why don't I have sleepy babies?! Ah well...I was astounded that Gabriel was very, very well-behaved, and concentrated on the class, followed the teacher and seemed genuinely interested. I expected disaster with his rambunctious and very creative pal Gina in the class. Katrina also enjoyed the whole class, and did great sitting on the floor with my legs supporting her, almost sitting up by herself for short periods. Ah, baby sitting up will mean a huge injection of freedom into my life!
So she practiced sitting again today with the help of two boppies, while I did a little exercising in the living room to try to rustle up some energy.
Argh. I thought we were clear, but Gabriel had 102 temperature again this afternoon. So now we have a pediatrician appointment tomorrow. He was acting and feeling a lot better after the temp broke, but that's been true all week.
Though I feel terrible for Gabriel being sick all week, selfishly I have to say I've enjoyed having him home, and having him be so...well, good. He needs me a little more now, but isn't clingy or whiny, and doesn't have the energy to antagonize Julian as much. He responds well to my fussing over him, and seems to be genuinely comforted when I do little things like offer to get him another blanket, or just hold him. He's really been delightful. I hope that keeps up when he's healthy!
2/8/07
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