Connie & Jorge: Emmy - Day 3 at the Hospital

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Emmy - Day 3 at the Hospital

When Mila was born, I was really against co-sleeping. Instead, Mila would wake up in the night, I get up and nurse her in the living room, and then gently tip-toe back to her bassinet to put her down and pray, pray, PRAAAY she not wake up as I lay her down. Most times, she'd wake right back up. Then we'd have to rock her back to sleep. Then by the time she'd fall asleep, it was time to nurse again!!! It was absolute torture. I remember waking up at night to nurse and she would wake up for the zillionth time and I would just cry because I was so sleep deprived! I was terribly unhappy. :(

Then Jorge went out of town for a week for work when Mila was about 3 months old. My mom came over and stayed in the guest room (which was Mila's room, but she didn't sleep there yet - she slept in our room in her bassinet.) Mila woke up and I tried to go through our usual routine of getting up to nurse her and praying she'd stay asleep as I put her back into bed. Of course, she woke up. In desperation, since I had the whole bed to myself, I took her into my bed and nursed her - and I fell asleep along with her. It was the best night's sleep I'd gotten in months. I couldn't believe it. I had been so scared to even try sleeping with her that I didn't even give myself a chance to see if it could work for us.

And that's how our co-sleeping began. I would nurse her and put her into her crib around 11pm and then when she'd wake up at 3 or 4am, I'd take her to the guest bed and nurse her there. It took a long while for Jorge to be comfortable with it. He realized that it was really working for us - that we were all sleeping SO much better - but I could tell he wasn't thrilled with the idea. He was never ok to stay in bed with us, either I would take Mila to the guest bed and sleep with her there, or he would go to the other room. She stopped waking up in the middle of the night to nurse relatively quickly, maybe around 7/8 months or so? And that's when the co-sleeping ended.

This time around - I have 2 kids to take care of. I need to be well rested. I can't be a zombie chasing after a toddler and taking care of a newborn! So this time, I figured I roll with whatever worked.

When Emmy was born, we were already 2 days of not being well-rested from being in labor Sunday night and Monday night. Tuesday night was our first night with her, and it was a bit rough. Aside from Emmy sleeping all day and being up most of the night, it didn't help that when we were able to get some sleep, the nurses are coming in and out checking me and checking the baby. Now Wednesday night - we were really starting to lose it! Emmy would cry whenever we put her into her little cubby - she hated it! So as we tried to calm her down, Jorge handed her to me in the bed and immediately, she stopped. She wanted to be with Mommy! Once she fell asleep, we tried moving her back to the cubby but she only stayed asleep briefly before she woke up again.

That's it! I positioned myself to make her a little nook and put my arms in such a way where I was holding her propped up by pillows. She was swaddled, so she couldn't really move. She quickly went back to sleep... and I dozed off.