Anna and Sleep

Anna has no problem sleeping during the day... Anywhere you put her is a good nap spot.

Anna isn't sleeping through the night yet.  I haven't gone back to confirm, but I feel like Juliet was down to one feeding a this point.  Anna is still eating at 1030, 1030, and 430.  And that's hard on me.  Ray is gone, so there's no one to help with the night duty, and I'm back at work full time.  Sleep is a hot commodity around here, and I'm not getting enough of it.  

Lack of sleep has a lot of adverse effects, and not the least of which is crabbiness.  I find that I am particularly impatient after a rough night with Anna (where she woke up more than usual or was up for long stretches instead of eating and going right back to sleep).  I'm also more prone to cry from feeling just so damn overwhelmed by it all.  Life is stressful, and it's hard for me to handle stress when I'm tired.

Hugh told me at the check-up last week that I could choose to let Anna cry it out in the middle of the night if I wanted, that it wouldn't harm her physically because she's growing well and didn't need the calories she's getting at those feedings.  I did some reading in Babywise and remembered that sometimes, kids need a little help dropping the middle-of-the-night feeding.  I'm torn about what to do, though.  I want to sleep for more than 3 hours at a time, but I'm terrified that if I let Anna cry it out, she'll wake Juliet (even though that's never happened before) and I'll end up with two screaming girls in the middle of the night with no one to help me settle them both back down.

I honestly think that at this point, she's waking out of habit more than anything else, so I may try to get her to settle down without feeding her and see if that makes a difference.  But it's so tempting to just feed her when I know that will keep her quiet and put her back to sleep.   I'm sure I'll get it figured out soon enough.  But it's times like these that I really, really miss Ray.  He can advise all he wants from afar and offer me all the support in the world.  But when it's time to pull the trigger and listen to her cry (and run the risk of waking Juliet), I'm on my own.  Funny how a grown woman can be so scared of a two-year old and a two-month old, isn't it?

Sleeping peacefully after a good supper.