Sleeeeeep....?

I apologize to the non-parents who read my blog...this entry is one of THOSE.  The obsessive rattling on about something you probably can't really relate to (let alone find any interest in) because it seems so strange that anyone would willingly throw themselves into a situation like this.  To the parents out there who read, let me be totally and completely clear that I am welcome to, and am actually fishing for sympathy, similar personal stories, encouragement and/or compliments at this point.  If you can relate at all, don't be shy--tell me about it.  It's one of those times, folks.

I've been purposely not writing about the sleeping as not to jinx anything but I have to say things seem to be looking up.  Mind you, this is the most tired I've been since the early days of Owen and our feeding challenges at that time.  For those who don't know THAT story, Owen flat out refused the breast for the first three weeks of his life.  You would have thought my nipples were razor blades slathered in poison because he did everything he could to not put his mouth on them to feed.  Then after a week or so, he would "nurse" for as long as I would sit there with him, without drinking a single drop until he finally, FINALLY at three weeks old, got the hang of it and hasn't looked back since.  During that time, I would attempt a feeding, then pump and then feed him a bottle.  The whole process took about an hour and a half and since he was eating about that often I was just constantly working on it.  Trying to pull that off with a three year old in the house was quite a challenge and, since Nathan had to go back to school immediately after we welcomed Owen home, I relied on my ever beautiful and generous friends, neighbors, mother and parents-in-law to help me out and keep me company during the day.

Anyway, I was tired then and I'm tired again now in this phase of sleep challenges.  I have to say that in this past week, we have made progress in leaps and bounds.  A week ago, he was waking up every hour pretty much, and Nathan was sleeping downstairs on the couch.  Now the kids are sleeping in the same room and Nathan is back in ours.  Admittedly, last night, Zoe ended up on a sleeping bag on our floor because Owen woke her up in the middle of the night and we had set up her sleeping bag on our floor for that purpose, but the night BEFORE that, everyone stayed in their very own beds until the morning.  Well, everyone but me but that's to be expected.  He's getting up for a middle of the night feeding and then is tending to get up again super early morning and I'm encouraging him to go back to sleep for another hour and a half or so.  Sometimes that itself takes an hour but I can tell, even if he can't, that he's just not ready to be up for the day yet.  He's napping great during the day, too so it all seems to be coming together.

I know these bumpy days are natural and I'm trying to pat myself on the back for all of the progress we've made.  I was terrified of and perplexed about the idea of putting them in the same room.  I asked so many parents with more than one how they went about doing that and, as is always the case when asking parents to recall stuff like that (myself included), the answer was usually something like "I don't really know but I guess the first couple days were challenging and then they just got used to it.  I think? I don't remember!"  So, I'm just hoping we're in those first couple bumpy days now and that someday I'll be able to give someone similarly vague advice about it all because I will have forgotten that it was this hard.  Sigh......