Wow... last week was one of our toughest yet. Elijah has been doing well, but Noah has been struggling. Sunday night, after a great weekend, Noah had a horrible time going to sleep. We chalked it up to a cranky three year old. He woke up Elijah several times before 9pm. By 10:30pm, Noah was screaming in his bed. Dion brought him to our bed. If you know us well, you know that we are staunchly against our kids sleeping in our bed. I have no issue with other families that practice co-sleeping, it is just not something our family wants to do. Well, Sunday night we broke our own rule for the first time. Noah was a mess. He was screaming, trying to sleep, but screaming some more. It was awful. I didn't know what the problem was or how to fix it. He couldn't communicate with me what was bothering him. The screaming/sleeping lasted about 5hrs before exhaustion kicked in and he fell asleep. Then Elijah decided to get up for the day at 4:30am. And Noah was back up.
Dion and I couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. By morning he seemed ok except he had a cough. We thought that perhaps it could be behavioral, but the screaming seemed to be associated with pain. I decided to keep him home and take him to the doctor to rule out illness. I am so glad I did. He had a double ear infection and a respiratory infection. Poor kid. His doctor put him on antibiotics and sent us on our way.
Monday night, Elijah decided to get up at midnight and not go back to sleep until 3am. Because the boys share a room, we can't just leave him in there to figure it out and put himself to sleep because the crying will wake up Noah. Ugh. Let me tell you that getting up at 5am with both boys only to have to go to work after getting 3 hours of sleep for several nights in a row is torture. Torture. Tuesday night the boys went to sleep without a problem but both were up by 4:30am. When Elijah wakes up for a bottle, he wakes up Noah. Neither will go back to sleep. Wednesday night, Noah woke up screaming several times throughout the night. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. He would go back to sleep, only to wake up an hour later. They were both up for the morning by 4:30. I'm sorry, but I consider 4:30am still night time. I sure wish my kids would get that memo.
Thursday night was Valentine's Day. Our niece offered to babysit so that Dion and I could go to dinner. We got the kids all ready for bed and put Elijah down for the night. Noah was in his PJs and ready to go. Dion and I went and had a nice dinner. It was nice to relax and have a meal together and get to focus on one another.
When we got home, we walked in to find both boys awake and crying on the couch. Our niece was trying to calm them but they were not happy. I got both boys back to bed only to have Noah wake up screaming again. We had a repeat of Sunday night. Screaming for hours mixed with a little sleeping. Exhaustion... pure and simple. We gave him some motrin and that seemed to help a little. By 3am he seemed to finally sleep. By now Dion and I were beyond ourselves. Dion agreed to take Noah back to the doctor. He took Noah back in only to find out that Noah's ears were much, much worse. He is now on stronger antibiotics. Poor kid.
We also decided that it was time to separate the boys. If you are at all familiar with our house, you know that we have three bedrooms, but one is set up as an office/guest room and is far from the rest of the rooms. We didn't want either of our kids in that room, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Friday night we moved Elijah's crib into the guest room. Let me tell you, that is the best thing we have done in a long time. We are finally getting some sleep! Elijah has slept through the night twice since making the move. He is still up for the day by 6:30am but I will take that over 4:30am any day.
The moral of this story? I have no clue. I'm too exhausted to come up with a moral...
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