"How is everyone sleeping?"

That seems to be the standard question after the "Awww he's so cute, how old is he"   I wish I had a go to answer, but the truth is for 5 weeks I've avoided saying the word sleep out of fear that Ethan will suddenly start waking up every 2 hours.  The first week of July Ethan started sleeping through the night (STTN). Not just 5-6 hours. He was sleeping 8-10 hours!! As all moms know, the first rule of STTN is you don't talk about STTN!!! I'm only breaking the rule today because I saw way too much of that cutie in the wee hours last night.


Apparently, Ethan felt that we needed to be reminded that sleep should not be taken for granted. He woke up hungry at 11:00. I fed him and he fell right back asleep. At 11:20 he was up.   He wasn't fussy, didn't need a diaper change,  happy as can be, cheesy monkey smiles, making all sorts of I'm so excited to see you noises. Rock, crib, shuffle back to bed, rinse and repeat every 20 minutes until 1:30. I brought him to bed with me. Something pre-kids I swore I would never do! All those things we swore we would never do when we had kids are quite humorous now!

There's a slight problem with having him in bed with us. We have a full size bed. It's freakin' small!! There is barely enough room for Dan and I to sleep comfortably in it, add another person, another person who sleeps like a star fish and no one is getting any sleep.  I put Ethan on my chest/belly to make a little more room and think when did this boy get soooo big???!! I'm laying on my back, sudo propped up, with a couple extra pillows behind me and one under my shoulder to keep it from cramping. It is virtually impossible for me to sleep on my back. I'm a side slash belly sleeper to the core. I manage to drift off and Dan starts snoring next to me. Of course.  I kick him, he rolls over. I drift off and Ethan does that crazy arms legs flailing thing that babies do. I drift off, the dog starts snoring. Super.  At 3:00 I put Ethan back in his crib.

I spend the next hour waiting for him to wake.  I feel my anxiety creeping in, the same anxiety I had with Brady, the 'he's going to be up at any moment, it's not worth me falling asleep just to be woke up 10 minutes later'.  Looking back, Dan and I have realized that I had more anxiety than the typical new mom.  At 5:00 he's up again. Dans' alarm will go off in 15 minutes. Dude! It's your turn!  Dan deals with him, gets ready for work and wakes me to tell me good bye around 6:15. Brady is up at 6:40.  

So why am I sharing a long ass story of my sleepless night????? Because a few months ago a night like last night would have broke me. I would have been a crying, yelling mess. Crying because I didn't like my emotions, because I had no desire to see my children between the hours of 9 pm and 7am and felt terrible for feeling that way, and wanted to sleep for the love of all things holy!! Yelling because Dan was laying there SLEEPING while I was dealing with Ethan. I would have woken up cranky and bitchy, my moodiness would have affected Brady and we all would have had an awful day. 
Thankfully last night and this morning turned out differently.
The fact that when Brady woke me up I was able say Good Morning Big Guy with a happy tone and a smile. I was able to get him breakfast and feed the dogs with out counting down the hours to nap time. For the first time I feel like I'm becoming the mom that I have always wanted to be and that is a great feeling.

Progress

Dan and I both had visions and dreams of a prefect baby who would be born being on our schedule, didn't fuss much, and slept easily. Ok, more so my vision than Dans. Dan just wanted him on a schedule. So we were both in for a rude awakening.
When we brought Brady home from the hospital, our lives revolved around him. Which is to be expected of course. We lived in two blocks of time. "Time to feed Brady" and "Waiting to feed Brady". Each nursing session lasted 45min to an hour. He was nursing every 2 to 2.5 hours, which didn't leave much time in between to accomplish much more than stuffing some food down and attempting to catch a quick nap.
The first month was rough on me and therefore rough on Dan too. Around 2 weeks of age, we noticed that Brady was crying an awful lot. And not just whiny cries, painful, inconsolable cries that lasted for hours. When he was awake he was crying and wanting to constantly be held. The crying was stressful. The added stress and anxiety of being a new mom, feeling like I couldn't help him, feeling like we drew the short straw and got the cranky, clingy baby, wondering if this was our 'punishment' for getting pregnant so quickly, questioning if we should have became parents left me completely physically and emotionally drained. I'm sure Dan lived in a constant wondering of what type of wife would he find when he got home from work...Tearful or Pissed and the World. Once we starting to get in tune with his body, we noticed that he would seem to spit up, then cry.....leading us to the acid reflux. Which was diagnosed when Brady was 5 weeks old.
After a week on his medication we began noticing a change. He wasn't crying as often and seemed like he was starting to be a bit happier all around. We could actually lay him down! He became very interested in his activity gym. And started to make those cute infant coo's and ahhs.
Currently at 9 weeks he is smiling at us, coo's and ahh's in contentment, enjoys his activity gym and his new bouncy seat enough that he has actually fallen alseep on his own while laying in them. He is beginning to find a schedule or rhythm to his day. Some days he goes to sleep at 8pm. Other days not until 10:30 or 11, but those days seem to be getting further and further apart. And two nights ago, he rewarded us with 6 hours of sleep! It also helps that I am learning to be flexible with my plans for each day and not putting as much pressure on myself. And, more importantly learning to listen and follow my mama heart.