Insomnia

I felt like the most privileged new mother in the whole world for the first 3 weeks of my baby's life. Nathan was sleeping 6-7 hour stretches, every night (except for the first night home from the hospital - that was a different story)! He would go to bed around 11 or so, & get up around 6 to eat, & then go back to bed for 3 more hours. I didn't want to brag about it too much to my other friends whose babies woke up every 2 hours on the dot, but I felt very lucky.

That has ended.

Nate will not sleep now.

Well... I shouldn't say "will not sleep." How about "fights sleep with every ounce of energy he can muster after being awake for 12 hours straight"?

It is currently 1:55 am - & my darling little boy has fallen asleep briefly & awoken 3 times in the past 3 hours. He is now laying next to me in my bed as I type. I guess our mattress is just more comfortable than his. Not asleep though.

Thankfully, once he's been asleep for more than 45 minutes, I know he'll stay asleep for a good 2-3 hours. It's just getting him to fall asleep initially! He doesn't like naps, either (hence the being awake for 12 hours straight stuff.) Thankfully, we can usually make it through the first 8-9 hours without being cranky.

Besides his cat-napping & dislike for going to bed at a decent hour (which really isn't a huge deal because he's fairly pleasant in the meantime), there is only other difficulty we have:

his love-hate relationship with the pacifier.**

We started off with these Nuks.
He didn't love them, but he didn't hate them, either. He'd fuss, Mom would give it to him, & it would calm him down. But he couldn't keep the darn things in his mouth! He was constantly dropping them! Like, every 7 seconds dropping them. Mom got tired of putting them back in his mouth. Holding them in didn't work, either - that made Nate angry.

So Mom bought these.



I didn't really like that the nipple is so long and thin - I thought they might slip out too easily. And... I was right. Nate doesn't care for these at all, mostly because he can't hold them in on his own. As soon as he stops sucking, they pop out.

We ended up at Grandma's without a pacifier on the 4th of July - his Nuk disappeared somewhere between the fireworks stand & their house. He was a crabby boy that night! So Grandma went to her "baby cabinet" & found a few pacifiers that none of the other kids had liked. So we rinsed them off &, lo and behold, Nate found one that he really liked! I was thrilled - he was taking it so much better!!!

There was only one problem.

It is the most hideous pacifier that has ever been manufactured.



Glow-in-the-dark orange and forest green? Who came up with this, anyway?
I want to buy a new one that is nicer looking, but I want this exact shape. There's not even a "brand" name on the pacifier - the closest thing I can find at the store is a MAM. But the Target by us only has pink MAMS. A no go. So I guess we'll stick with fluorescent orange and green for now. The cute baby makes up for the ugly paci, anyway.



** Disclaimer on the pacifier:
I guess I feel the need to justify a pacifier since it's somewhat a "controversial" subject - they're not "natural", baby should nurse if they need to suck, they can suck on their fingers, blah, blah.
Nathan is NOT a comfort nurser. He eats & is done, done, done. Get away, Mom. But he still wants to suck, & hasn't mastered the sucking on his fingers thing yet. He'll sometimes suck on the side of his fist, but honestly, he prefers the pacifier so much more! And I can throw the pacifier away when he gets too old for it. I can't exactly throw away his thumb...
That, & I'm his mother. So I get to decide. :)