He prefers the “white spine” vintage years. less car ads.
Well, after four days with no internet access and what looks like months of waiting for one ahead of me, I broke down and got myself a Telcel 3G mobile internet connection. I can go anywhere and use my computer, yippeee! It costs $45/month with a limit of 3GBs/month, we’ll see how that lasts me.
On with the real story…
In the midst of our insane pack-a-thon and moving schnazmatalia, Luca turned 5 months old on July 5th. To say that these past five to six weeks have been the hardest so far, would be the largest understatement in the short 6000 year old history of this Earth. Shortly after Marcia’s mom left town at the beginning of June, Luca started waking up 5 and 6 times a night. The first few days were grueling, sometimes all he needed was to burp and others he’d be up for an hour or so and we’d have to pace him around in the house in his stroller, finally get him to bed, only to have him wake up again 45 minutes later. We held out hope that this was just a phase he was going through and it would pass in a few days. Marcia and I were walking zombies and days turned to a week and one week turned to two and so on.
We noticed right away that both his day time and night time sleeping habits had changed. During the day, he would sleep for maybe 45 minutes at a time, no more than twice a day. And at night, if he slept for 3 consecutive hours at a time, we considered this a good night. The days were killing us both, as Luca demanded attention from at least one of the two of us all day long and his lack of sleep was apparent in his moods. He’s a very playful baby, smiling, happy and engaging with everybody, but when he’s in a bad mood, look out.
We began dreading the nights. At times, Luca would wake at full cry. Our ‘tricks’ of getting him back to sleep started to lose potency. We saw multiple doctors, no one could find anything physically wrong with him. Everyone we consulted was telling us to do various versions of the cry it out method. After the second full week, I was agreeing with them. I couldn’t stand it any more. But Marcia stuck it out, resisting the method, looking for something kinder and gentler. Marcia began to take more of the nighttime waking burden, as my grouchiness and groggy clumsiness only woke him up more where her soft touch would often get him back to sleep in minutes. Luca would often wake at between 5 and 6am and as hard as we tried we couldn’t get him back to sleep. So I began to get up with him and start our day, giving Marcia a few consecutive hours alone to catch up on sleep.
As two weeks turned to three and then four, I had begun to resent Marcia for not agreeing to the cry it out method, I just wanted this to be over and it seemed like the easiest/best way out. I was also a little resentful of Luca. It was hard dealing with him and in some ways I shut down and angered easily. I caught myself a few times and ironically, the more I re-engaged the easier dealing with him became. We slowly started to mold to Luca’s erratic sleeping habits. We learned new tricks and ways to constructively deal with him. And just in the past week, in the new house, we’ve both begun to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We’re taking active steps to maintain his schedule, which we really hadn’t done before, for some odd reason – Marcia is very clockworkish – and Marcia and I began to understand how each of our strengths and weaknesses could be played off him.
prunes and papaya – keepin’ it regular, ya huuuurd.
The tide really began to turn when we noticed that in different moods, he responded differently. And if you looked closely you could kinda tell what he needed: to be rocked in his stroller, held and rocked, bottle, booby, taken for a walk, to sit upright, etc… I guess we’ve really begun to listen to him. Things really crystalized when we realized that during the day he is truly tired and wants to sleep but can’t. It’s like he’s missing the sleep button. Seeing little bags under his eyes, it’s plain to see that he’s not happy either.
We’re now going into the 6th week of this craziness and he’s sleeping regularly in 3 hour intervals at night, getting up a few other times, but for no more than a quick “chupa” and back to bed. His tantrum hour seems to be 5-6am, on good nights I have to stroll him around the house and on bad nights I have to stroll him around the half-vacant “coto” we live in. fun. But somehow it’s getting easier and we feel like we’re in this together, all three of us. We are trying to find ways for Luca to sleep more and he wants to sleep more. We’re hoping that increased solid foods and daily exercise (swimming in our new community pool) will help get this kid – at the very least – a little more regularized.
It’s been a rough month!
Luca and his abuelito Francisco
