Sleep...Or The Lack Thereof...

I got what I had coming to me. I did. I shouldn't have bragged about how great he was sleeping when he was 3 months old. I shouldn't have waxed poetic about his 9 and 10 hour nights of sleep. I should have kept my mouth shut, enjoyed it, and not rubbed it in other parents' faces.

But I didn't do that. And he hasn't slept through the night more than a handful of times in the last 4 months.

Karma is a muthaf...well, you know.

I am becoming a cranky person. A sleep-deprived whiner, an overtired bully, and a general bitch. My poor husband, bless him, tolerates it with a good face most of the time. And the times he gets snappy back at me are usually justified and long overdue. I don't like this, I don't enjoy being a mean and impatient version of myself. And I hate that sometimes my impatience comes out at the little Monkey Man, who certainly doesn't deserve it.

We just don't know what to do at this point. We have tried the "get up with him every time he wakes up and soothe him back to sleep" thing. We tried the Ferber method "slowly work your way up to less soothing and more sleeping" thing. We have tried a mangled combination of the two. We have tried earlier bedtimes, later bedtimes, more food before bed so his tummy isn't empty, warmer room, cooler room, less jammies and more naked, more jammies and less naked...we have tried sound machines and humidifiers and night lights that put stars on the ceiling. We have tried everything we can think of, short of letting him cry himself back to sleep (well we tried that one night and he cried off and on for 2 hours, and it was my personal nightmare.)

The crazy thing is that when he started sleeping through the night, it just happened. On its own. We didn't do anything different. One night he just slept all night. And then the next night. And then it was normal. I dream about those nights. At least, when I manage to get enough sleep at one time that I dream at all, I dream about those nights...