Sitting In a Pool of Blood

Ok, that may be an exaggeration, but it is definitely what I felt like Saturday morning. Let me backup and explain.

Postpartum PMS can be - and is for me - a dizzying ordeal. A few weeks ago, I had a few days where I just couldn't remember anything. My hubby walked the dog, took off her leash and sat down next to me on the couch ... at which point I turned to him and asked, "Have you walked the dog yet?" Um, helloooo! After a couple days of this type of brain (in)activity, we looked at each other and wondered if we had just forgotten what this was like, or if postpartum PMS was really much worse. Talking to some of my mommy friends, I hear this is a common phenomenon. Woo-hoo!

Fast forward a month, and I *finally* started my period - three weeks later than I expected, which caused some anxiety in itself. So I started Thursday afternoon and was pretty much fine until Friday night. I was in the bedroom with Johnny, nursing him to sleep as usual. Jim was in the living room, playing xbox games with his friends (online - they weren't visiting). I started to really resent that I always get stuck getting the boy to sleep while he does his own thing at night. I mean just about every night! I didn't think much of it until I looked back in retrospect, but I do remember thinking maybe this was a hormonal, period thing.

Anyway, Johnny didn't sleep well all night - tossing and turning, nursing constantly, or so it felt. I was exhausted when we all woke up in the morning and just couldn't stop crying. Jim took Johnny to change him and get him into his clothes while I laid in bed, crying. Finally I struggled out of bed and decided to make breakfast. Jim said he could pick something up since I seemed to be a bit of a mess, but I insisted that cooking would help me feel better, and it did. For a while.

One of the problems with having your period while you are still nursing is that you can't really walk away from everything and sequester yourself for a day or two ... which is what I normally try to do when I have my period. Instead, you are still in near-constant contact with this little being that takes its very nourishment from your body. Combine this with sleep deprivation, and it's really a recipe for disaster, as we found out.

Earlier in the week, we had decided to start sleep training Johnny this weekend. Jim was to move his crib back into his room and we were going to follow the baby whisperer to get the boy to sleep.

Obviously I was in no state to deal with sleep training a baby, but I didn't think to cancel or postpone the event. At one point, I was sitting on the couch, thinking, "I feel like I'm sitting in a pool of blood."

When it was time for his first nap, I swooped him up in my arms and plopped him into his crib. I didn't bother with trying to dim the room, play a soft lullaby, or soothe him. It's no surprise that Johnny didn't settle down. I followed the directions for about half an hour, then asked Jim to take a turn. I was already crying.

Finally it was time for Johnny to eat his solid lunch, so we took a break. At some point, Jim suggested I lie down, so I took a quick nap, then laid in bed feeling lethargic and unable (unwilling?) to think too much about anything.

After my nap, Jim tried to put Johnny down to sleep, but he wasn't having it. I could hear the boy crying his head off and eventually it sounded like he was screaming. I thought Jim was just leaving him in the crib to cry instead of following the procedures, so I finally got up to check - I couldn't take it anymore.

Jim had the boy up to his shoulder, but Jim was facing away from me so I couldn't silently offer to take over. Instead, Johnny saw me and started screaming louder. sigh. I ended up in the living room with my hands over my ears, tears streaming down my face. Ultimately, Jim and I had an argument that ended with me grabbing the baby out of his arms and yelling, "fuck you!" ... then *running* down the hall to our bedroom and slamming the door behind me.

The morals of this story are:

1. Don't sleep train when you have your period for only the second time since you've given birth. Hopefully the period situation will get better, but for now it's a dicey time.
   
2. When you do decide to sleep train, make sure you have your plan mapped out and that you follow it.
   
3. SHARE that plan with your partner! The more communication you do before you start, the less likely you are to have wild misunderstandings during the process.
   
4. With some of these methods, it is important for you to be able to communicate without the baby knowing it's going on. In our case, life would have been easier if Jim was standing facing the door - I could have indicated to him and the boy would not have seen me.

Hopefully your sleep training experience will be easier than ours. In the end, we decided not to do it ... not sure how long this will last, but for now the boy is staying in bed with us.