The Long Endless Nights...

Help! I'm so tired, but I can't go to sleep. Baby Bear gets these spells (mostly in the middle of the night) where she just won't go to sleep. They kind of go like this: (1) She wakes up from a 4-5 hour slumber (2) I feed her, but she falls asleep after 10 minutes (3) I try to wake her and she just grunts at me (4) I change her diaper, her clothes and set her down somewhere to get her to wake up (5) She ends up sleeping for about 10 to 20 minutes (6) I get settled thinking she'll continue sleeping and (7) she wakes up asking to be fed more.

This usually goes on for about 4 or 5 hours. By the time the end of it comes, she's tired and I'm tired, but she still won't go to sleep. I've tried letting her cry (which some books say should put her to sleep eventually), but she will cry persistently for 30 minutes to an hour. I've tried a pacifier because other books say that some babies just have a need to suck. She spits it out because it doesn't provide her the milk she so desires. I make sure to wake her every 2 and a half to 3 hours to make sure that she gets in all her feedings during the day, but she still has this battle with me every night.

Now, I guess I can't really complain. After all, I hear that some babies are just fussy or they have colic so they end up like this all day. Perhaps Baby Bear is just a slow eater and needs to take her time...If this is so, she takes after her dad, padawanlee.

As one of the nurses told me in the hospital, "there's a reason why God made babies so cute...that way, you just look at their tiny features, their little smiles, and you forget what it was that you were so frustrated about a few minutes ago."

Daddy says this is how Mommy sleeps, too.