ok, jumping right back into blogging

and of course the first real post is about ... drumroll please ... rat a tat tat ... the baby not sleeping.

she does.not.sleep.

at almost five months of age, i still have no idea what her preferences are re: routine. i'm not much for imposing schedules - i wanted to wait and see what her natural rhythms were - but apparently she prefers everything loose and free. this is not okay with me.

typical day: wake up after 10 hours in bed (often less), play with mommy for an hour, nurse for an hour (after fighting mommy for half an hour), play, nurse (after fighting mommy), fight mommy to stay awake, fight mommy to stay awake (repeat this cycle until bedtime), bedtime, nurse, wakey wakey, sleep for 45 minutes, nurse, fight to stay awake, then finally go down for night (waking every 20 minutes to 2 hours to nurse), then morning again.

there are many variations but they all involve too little sleep for the ninja. from what i know, babies at this age are supposed to sleep an average of 14 hours a day. mine sleeps maaaaaybe 11 or 12, minus all the night nursing time. two nights ago, for example, she only finally went to bed at 12 am and then decided at 5:30 that it was time to get up - and in between those two times, she wanted to nurse every 20 minutes.

right now dh and i decided to change things cold turkey. i have tried to make changes but it's difficult when i'm by myself with ninja most of the time, as dh works up north. i have done the best i can do. i try to tank her up during the day so that she will sleep better, both day and night, but ninja doesn't care to nurse when the sun shines. i also tried making her nurse for full sessions at night because she wants to eat for a few minutes every 30-60 minutes but that also didn't work - i was too exhausted dealing with her by myself and she just didn't want to nurse on command.

but, for tonight, dh has her. i nursed her until she - of course - woke herself right up, and now dh has her. i'm not allowed to see ninja until 12:30 a.m. to nurse, then at 4:30, and then at 8:30. she can easily go 5 hours during the day without nursing and so we figured that she should be able to go for 4-hour stretches at night.

i am not asking the popular "when will she sleep through the night?" question. i expect and accept that this will not happen for a long time. i am fine with night-nursing. i am ok with my own sleep deprivation. what i am not okay with is her own absolute fatigue. babies need sleep for many reasons, one of which is proper brain development. she needs sleep. how can i give it to her?

i will try really hard to maintain this plan - imposing a night schedule - but it's so hard with a very demanding baby. i love her to pieces, it's not about that. it's just that i am almost (ALMOST) glad that i couldn't have a baby when i first tried because i would never ever have had the patience to deal with this lovely but high-needs child. i do have the patience now, though. it's tough but we're working on it!