A good night's sleep. What's that like again?

Whew. It was a long weekend, and not really in a good way. Gus has been sick since Thursday evening, and has basically been terrorizing our household with his runny nose and neediness and inability to sleep more than 45 minute to one hour stretches. I am exhausted. He’s only had about three colds since he’s been born, but gosh, I forget how horrible they are until we’re in the trenches again.

Of course I got whatever he has, and tending to my poor sick child pretty much all night long has not helped with my recovery. I feel like death.

In related news, I’ve created a monster. My child is obsessed with his mama and basically only wants me in the middle of the night. He gets so worked up when Dan tries to take a shift, to the point that it will take him two to three times as long to get him back to sleep, so it just doesn’t seem worth it to switch off. Half the time I lay in bed listening to them in the other room, stressing out over Gus’s cries, getting frustrated that Dan can’t do it right. Also note: I am a control freak. So yeah, my control freak ways REALLY come back to haunt me when I’m sick and my child wants me and only me.

Last week we toyed with the idea of taking down Gus’s crib and setting up a Montessori style bed on the floor in his room. This would make it easier to help soothe him back to sleep in his own room, because when I am faced with the choice of the rocking chair or our bed, in my hazy middle-of-the-night state I will almost always choose our bed. And there he will stay for the rest of the night. If I could curl up with him in his own bed and sneak out when he falls back asleep, that would be a hell of a lot more preferable to the careful dance of leaning over the crib ever so slowly, trying to be as still as possible, inching my arm out from under him ever so carefully. I hate that dance. Damn crib.

We know we need to make some sort of change because we’re going on a ski trip in January with some friends, meaning we’ll be leaving him overnight for the first time. 5 days, 4 nights at my parents’ house. Good God, suffice it to say, I am freaking out a little.

So we need to get on top of this sleeping thing a little, try to get him to the point where he will sleep by himself in his own bed for a good portion of the night, and if that’s not working, at least get him used to having someone tend to him besides his mother and her almighty boobs. We decided against ditching the crib for good at this stage in the game, (mostly because we do like having a place in the house where he can be safely contained!). So we set up the toddler bed in our room, right next to our bed, up against the wall. So basically we are a bunch of hippies with a big old family bed that takes up our entire bedroom. The plan is to get him to sleep more on his own in that little bed, where he’s still within arms reach, he’s not alone in his room which we know he hates, and he can still be soothed quickly and easily when needed. And the best part of this arrangement is that it gives us so much more room. Like seriously, the extra space is a god-send.

Since he’s been sick this weekend, we haven’t seen much progress, actually it’s probably gone the other way as anyone who has dealt with a sick baby would probably guess, but hopefully the little change will be good for our family.

Seriously though, he is such a stubborn little stinker, the kid just wants to sleep snuggled up to you all night long. If he’s not face all up in my chest, he’s spreading both of his arms out to touch Dan and me, making sure we’re both still there, and sleeping spread eagle, taking up about ½ the bed himself. Last night I kept trying to put him in his own little side bed, and he would just roll and squirm over to me within 5 minutes. At one point, I think it was around 3:30 AM, he dive-bombed over my body to get between Dan and me. And when there was no room between us, he just snuggled up, closed his eyes, and decided he would sleep sprawled out on top of the both of us.

When Dan left for work this morning he was sleeping horizontally, half in our bed, half in his, his head in my armpit and his feet up on his pillow. I mean this is what I’m dealing with. Such a character, it’s a good thing he’s so gosh darn cute.