Writing prompt: The biggest question

So I signed up for these writing prompts "The One-Minute Writer" in the hopes that getting these every day would make me want to write something more often. And today's did.

Question: "What is the biggest question in your life that you'd like to have answered?"

I can answer that: "WHY DOES MY CHILD WAKE UP EVERY 1-2 HOURS EVERY NIGHT???"

I could write a lot on this one. I realize no one cares, but this my blog so you have to listen to me!!

He is 4 months old. He just had a checkup today and everything is fine. When he wakes up, he cries but he does not want to eat. He does not want attention and he does not want to be held. We pick him up and try to comfort him and he just gets MORE MAD. He does this for 15-45 minutes every time and then just goes back to sleep. At first I was worried but now it is just getting annoying.

We really did try the Cry It Out but he can out-cry our tolerance. We tried co-sleeping so that we would be near him and he wouldn't cry, but he doesn't care if we are there or not. He just cried VERY LOUDLY IN OUR EARS for 30 minutes. Every 1-2 hours.

Everyone always told me that the first 3 months would be the hardest but honestly they were easy. He woke up at night but I didn't have to work 10 hour shifts then, and I was prepared for the waking up. He still napped during the day so I just took naps when he did. We got to cuddle a lot and it was sweet and fun. By the 10th week he was sleeping 5 hours in the first stretch and then 3 hours after that, so I got almost 8 full hours of sleep every night, it was great!

But then about one month ago, when he is old enough that he isn't supposed to be waking up anymore, he has quit napping during the day and starting this waking thing now that I have to work 10 hour shifts again.

Regardless of how you might think I am blogging about my child, this is about me, people. I never get any sleep. I have trouble communicating. I am letting it seep into my blog.

Go ahead, list things I should try.

I will bet you $10 we have tried it already.

7 Quick Takes Friday #6

I know I haven't done  7 Quick Takes Friday in about 100 years but it's back!

--- 1 ---

Part of the reason I am excited to do this is because Jen of Conversion Diary, who hosts this writing prompt, just posted a link to the Oprah episode about the nuns! I was so mad that I missed this episode of Oprah because I was off that day and getting groceries. We don't have cable or DVR so there was no way for me to see the episode I missed. Now I get to see it!! Woo hoo!

--- 2 ---

Nuns are totally fascinating. I think it is actually the not-having-to-think-about-clothing-or-possessions more than the not-having-sex.

--- 3---

I did get my nose pierced for my birthday. I know my mom is reading this. It's very small.

--- 4 ---

I have had a cold since I got my nose pierced. It is very interesting to have a snotty nose with a newly pierced nose. I am fortunate that I work from home and shut myself up in my office alone because there is a lot of what might be construed as nose-picking going on over here.

--- 5 ---

We still haven't sold our 1980 Mercedes that runs on veggie oil. I have put it on Dallas Craigslist 3 times, the Austin Craigslist once, and the local Dallas area eBay. I am reluctant to put it on eBay Motors nationally because it costs $125 just to list it. But we have been trying 3 months and I am about to do it anyway.

--- 6 ---

People keep contacting us about the ad, asking for the pictures, and then never contacting us again. What?? I think it is in pretty good shape for being 30 years old and it runs perfectly. ALSO IT RUNS ON FUEL THAT IS FREE!

--- 7 ---

Someone very close to me is looking for a job as a Front End Developer (HTML, CSS, Javascript). It does not need to be in Dallas or even in Texas but it must not involve travel from the location of the employment. This person has a lot of experience. Please contact me if you know of anyone hiring.

Well that's all for this week, be sure to visit Conversion Diary for links to more 7 Quick Takes Fridays.

An imaginary conversation

Sometimes when I don't write for a while I feel guilty. I think, my readers have forgotten about me already, I am a boring blogger, but I have good reasons and no one ever gives me the opportunity to explain myself! It's really all about the invisible audience in my head that I don't actually even have. Then I realized that it's my freakin' blog and I can write out the answers to the questions that, truthfully, no one has even bothered to ask.

Why haven't you been blogging much lately?
I am going to blame this on the baby who never lets me sleep. His cuteness can suck me in and takes me away from other things a lot. I will also admit that I do not have my life balance re-adjusted sufficiently since the birth of my child to be able to incorporate as much blogging as I might like.

I thought you said this wasn't going to be a mommy blog!
I know, you are right, I said that. And honestly, don't think that I have turned this blog into a constant stream of pictures of Little Sir and what he is doing, so that should count for something. I have posted reviews of child-related books and I have whined a lot about mom-related things. But I have kept most of updates about the baby on our Family Blog.

OK fine so this is not technically a mommy blog, but what IS it now?
Who knows? All I can say is that when I want to write about my own personal opinions or feelings, the family blog is not the place to do it. So this blog is where they end up. I really do still feel that this fits in with my tagline "Confused about what I should be doing, but inspired to do the right thing, for the right reasons." and the outline of how I've defined what this blog is about.

What are you planning on writing about that would convince me not to just delete you from my reader?!

• I am trying to finish a book that I really like right now and should be writing a review some time in the next few weeks. It is not about kids or babies! It is a real book.
• I bought a Swiffer WetJet and am currently attempting to figure out how to "green it up" because I feel like the cleaning solution that comes with it is so freaking strong that it made me nauseated and gave me a headache, not to mention that those little disposable pads are wasteful. I am hoping to work on sewing a microfiber cloth alternative.
• I have hired a green housecleaning company to do a 3-room cleaning through the wonders of Groupon discounts and will be reviewing what I think of them in the beginning of March.
• What would YOU like me to write about?

Seriously - does anyone have any suggestions? I would love to hear!

Disproving Dr. Weiss@ss

I put that @ sign in there just to be nice. I don't really think he deserves it at this point.

You probably know who I mean - Dr. Weissbluth, MD, author of the famous "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" book that everyone drools over. Even our pediatrician told us to read this book the most recent time that I called her begging her to do something, anything, about how my child refuses to sleep (I call them about once a week asking this).

First of all, Dr. W is a fan of Cry It Out, which neither of us feel good about, no matter how hard we try. I'm not condemning anyone who is OK with it - I wish we could be, but we have tried and we just can't. Also, our child has never heard of it and he does not abide by it.

That is one of the first of the "facts about sleep" presented by Dr. Wiess@ss that Little Sir has completely disproven. I am so sleep deprived right now that I am getting angry at the doctor for even writing them down and giving me these false hopes. So here they are, a list of "sleep facts" that Little Sir has disproven:

• Longer naps in the day time provides longer sleep at night. Yesterday (Monday) Little Sir took one of the longest naps of his life (excluding the first 2 days after he was born), which was 2.2 hours long. He then proceeded to wake up loudly every 1-2 hours all night long last night. He had done it the night before that as well, only that time he had some stretches of 3 hours or so. Oooo.
• When a child learns to self-soothe to sleep, he will sleep through the night. We have never really had an issue with Little Sir falling asleep. From the very first time we put him alone in his crib, he just smiled up at us and fell right asleep. Nowadays he is more likely to talk to himself for 30 minutes or so, but he rarely actually cries when put down to sleep. It's the waking every 2-3-4 hours when the crying happens. According to the logic of the sleep books, if he can put himself to sleep he "should" be able to stay asleep. I wish!
• A nap of less than one hour is not even real sleep. If this is true, Little Sir has probably only napped for real about 16 times since his birth (excluding the first 2 days after he was born).
• Being sleep deprived creates a grumpy baby.  Considering that, according to Dr. W, Little Sir has almost never had a real nap in his life and has never slept through the night, it seems odd that he is very cheerful and people tell us all the time what a happy baby he is. After a long night of not sleeping or a nap of 10 minutes (not a "real" nap, apparently), Little Sir always looks up at me and smiles like, "Well that was fun". I'm not saying he isn't twitchy and overly excitable from being overtired. I am just saying he's not grumpy about it.

Another thing that sucks is how all these sleep books I have read spend more than 50% of their pages going on and on about how horrible sleep deprivation is, how your child is going to grow up not being able to learn or reach milestones, and what a terrible parent you are if you don't let your child get enough sleep. This just makes me feel crappy. Like I am sitting around making my child stay awake. For the love of God, if I wanted him to stay awake like this all the time, why would I read all these completely unhelpful sleep books?? And who wants to get up constantly all night, every night anyway? Not me.

That is all for now on the sleep books. I have decided they are just making me paranoid.

Book review: Sleeping Through the Night by Jodi A. Mindell

Obviously, I read this book because my child is not sleeping through the night. He also has started to refuse naps during the day. He is an eating machine. He just wants to eat, eat, eat.

I was disappointed in this book. It did not tell me anything I had not already heard. Basically, the premise was that if your child is not sleeping through the night it is because he or she has "negative sleep associations", meaning that you have allowed your baby to become dependent on something to fall asleep (being rocked, being nursed, your presence, etc.), so that when the baby wakes up in the middle of the night he or she is unable to go back to sleep without that thing (being rocked, being nursed, your presence). The solution for this problem is to let the child Cry It Out (CIO) until they get over the negative association.

I would like to point out that this theory of all wakings being sleep associations is crap, in my humble opinion. My child can go to sleep from just laying in his crib awake with no problem. He doesn't have any sleep associations that I can tell. When he wakes up in the middle of the night,  I have tried just putting in the pacifier and going away and he is very insistent that he is HUNGRY. It isn't a sleep association. So is it right to claim that this is the case with all middle-of-the-night wakings? Wouldn't you end up with starving babies who start to think no one cares? And if you think he won't cry to the point where he chokes and gasps, you are wrong - he will if he is truly hungry. There is no way I am going to ignore that.

The only valuable piece of information in this book is the part where they recommend trying to nurse for smaller and smaller amounts of time each night for the middle-of-the-night feedings. I might actually try that, who knows.