Baby Holding Days and Sleepless Nights

God did not see fit to allow me to birth children who actually sleep.

It's 10:00 on the dot as I type this one handed. My other hand is attempting to restrain a wiggling, babbling, drooling 6 month old. Now, I will admit that he is normally not up this late. Today is one of those days that just won't end. If you're a parent, you know what I'm talking about.

Now it's 10:45. I reached my limit with little wigglepants and traded out for wigglepants senior, who finally passed out around 10:30. Justin is holding the little one now, who is still babbling, fussing, smiling, drooling and generally making us feel like pulling our hair out because whywontyoujustgotosleeeeeeeep.

I have two kids who are not good sleepers.

Sam is 4.5 years old and I've resigned myself to the fact that he's not a good sleeper. It's almost impossible for him to put himself to sleep and we give him melatonin at night to help him calm down. When he does fall asleep, he still wakes up 2-3 times every night. If he's in our room with us, he usually goes right back to sleep. If he's in his own room, it's not so easy. He hates being alone. We've finally gotten him out of our bed and onto a mattress on the floor at the end of our bed.

Lately I've been talking to him about whether he'd like to sleep in a room with Danny. That could be a solution to the problem of not wanting to be alone, and he seems open to it.

IF

Danny ever sleeps through the night.

He's six months old, almost seven, and he still does not sleep through the night. He usually goes down for the night between 8 and 9, but still wakes at least twice a night, sometimes more, to eat. I'm not putting him in his crib if I'm still feeding him three times in the middle of the night, because frankly I don't want to get up and stumble down the hall and sit in there three times in the middle of the night.

Last weekend when I was in Seattle by myself I realized that those were only the 2nd and 3rd nights in OVER EIGHT MONTHS that I had slept through the night. Oh, how I miss sleeping.

One of the reasons I absolutely HAD to hand off tonight is because Danny also doesn't like to nap unless we're holding him. It's an awesome phase he's in right now where I can't ever put him down. So, I was going on 12 hours of BABYBABYBABY. Sometimes, I just want no one to be touching me for like 5 minutes, you know? I feel anxious because the house is messy, but Danny doesn't really nap in the afternoons if I try to put him down to get stuff done. SO, instead I hold him and try to relax myself if possible.

I know that these endless baby-holding days and sleepless nights won't last forever. It just SEEMS like it sometimes.