Natural disaster

I don’t really know how to explain it. It is like a hurricane or maybe some other natural disaster like a tsunami or tornado. A full force blast of turture and horrible-ness.Of course I haven’t ever experienced any of those things, but this has to be something similar to those.I’ll have to record it sometime, to prove it.
Just barely, I put him down for another nap. I have a little area set out on the floor with some blankets and padding (because I tried this before a month or so ago, and I still had it rolled up in his closet). I had him take a nap there this morning, and he woke up without really making a noise and rolled around and palyed for a while. That is fine, but i want him to learn that he needs to sleep in his bed. I think I am only going to put him in there for naps and bedtime–nothing else. No play time, no fun time, no “Let me put you in there for just a minute while I do something real quick” things.I’m so frustrated I can barely think to write.What I’m getting at, is what happened when I just barely put him down for a nap. I decided not to use the floor, but to use his bed. I sat in teh chair, and fed him. That usually gets him sleepy, but sometimes, like now, he doesn’t cooperate. He find teh arm of the chair with his feet, and pushes. Then, he pulls his head back and unlatches, then gets mad, then latches back on, then pulls back off, repeatedly. I try to stay calm, and sometimes he calms down and just eats and everything is okay. But not this time. He was so difficult, I decided he had gotten something to eat and that was better than nothing, especially since I fed him half an hour ago. So I stuck him in his bed and tried to put a pacifier in his mouth, but it wasn’t a nuk one so he didn’t really want it. I left him in teh room, starting to kick and scream already (he can’t really move around as much as he’d like, since he has his arms wrapped up, but I have to do that or he can’t sleep at all usually). I went into the kitchen, washed some other pacifiers off, and made a bottle of formula. I had some leftover from what they gave me at the hospital, and Cait used it once she she didn’t have any while she was here. That is the only time it has ever been used. Want to know why? I make a 2 oz bottle, because I know what will happen. I just hope that maybe I will get surprised this time. But, I walk into the room, over to the crib, and see the screaming baby all scrunched up in teh corner of the bed, butt in the air like a stinkbug, and I roll him back onto his back, in the middle of the bed, and I put the bottle in his mouth. he relaxes barely enough to notice that it has something dripping out of it, and it must be horrible, because suddenly he gets louder, and is now gargling the milk. See…this is what happens every time. Anything that comes out of a bottle is awful. So I stuck the pacifier back in his mouth, he relaxes, I pat his chest a little, and he closes his eyes so I walk away.I forgot to mention, the static from the radio is blaring the whole time.I tried my usual things, the three that I know will help him sleep–nursing, static, and being wrapped up. But what if that isn’t it anymore? What is that is part of the reason he is so hard to get to sleep sometimes? I guess I’ll just have to keep trying this, and see how it works. I’m going to try to make some kind of schedule and routine, so I can get him “trained” (I guess) for when I go back to school. so his schedule and mine can work together, and not have to work around each other or mess things up.
Last night was the first night I really really tried to leave him in his bed, to go to sleep on his own.I thought I was going to fall apart.
It was okay at first. I fed him, and he squirmed as usual. I kept trying, and he was pretty good. After a few minutes, I stood up and laid him in his bed. That was a bad thing. He freaked out, and I put thi pacifier in his mouth, and left him there while I went out and put some stuff on the lawn (the reason for that is a whole new blog on its own) and when I came back in he was still crying. Anthony was watching something on the computer, and I am glad he hadn’t tried to help, because he would have messed it up. I went back in, put the pacifier in his mouth, held it in there and held him down so he couldn’t squirm, and he calmed down after about a minute.I left the room, and Anthony asked what happened. he said it was weird that Neils just suddenly stopped. I said “He’s tired, he just doesn’t want to go to sleep that way.” And then I said something about how it sucks that the only thing I can really do to calm him down is to stick my nipples in his mouth. Anthony said “It’s kind of our fault, for never giving him a bottle” But not giving him a bottle isn’t a bad thing!! It is just bad that I’ve taken the easy route and had him sleep in the bed with me, so all I had to do when he woke up is to lift my shirt up and pull him close enough that he could latch on, then I’d usually just fall asleep.At first it wasn’t like that. We’ve had various ways of this night time thing, and I don’t want to get into it right now. I have a lot to say bout this, and I think this blog is already super long.Basically, last night was hard. I put him to bed the first time at 8:30, he fell asleep around 9, then he woke up at 9:34, and that time was worse than the first, by FAR, so I don’t know when he went back to sleep. I think I was so tired that I don’t really remember much of the night, just that I ended up getting him out of the bed, and falling alseep on the floor with him. Anthony came in to kiss me before he went to work at 4:30, and I went back to the bed, but ended up going back and forth between the rooms all morning, until I gave in and brought him to my bed. Grr. It’s a good thing we have a California king sized bed.I have so much to say…Reasons for not having Neils in my bed anymore:-He needs to learn how to sleep in his own bed.-He wakes up and crawls around, and since he is better on his hands and knees now, the pillows don’t hold him on…he fell off once, onto the wood floor, and had a knot on his head, and one morning I even prepared myself, and tossed some pillows down, hoping he wouldn’t fall off but in case he did, the pillows would soften his fall. They did.-Sometimes I let him sleep only in his diaper, and with the cheap diapers I was testing out (I needed to know if he needed to go up to 3s) we’ve had them come off halfway, and one day I wake up with a wet spot on the bad, and a baby with a diaper half way on, and the next day, I wake up with a wet spot and three little turds less than a foot way from my head, and a half-diapered baby.-I need sleep!
Agh. I am a little cheerier (those turds were funny, I have to admit) but I am still dreading the next nap time. I will try so hard not to give in, and I will keep updating this since it helps me to think I am in control, and helps me think I really can do this. I can keep it documented to see how well it is going, and maybe somebody will have some advice or something.I can do it!