My pride. It went-eth before my fall. (Part 1)

Rabid readers of this blog have undoubtedly noticed a distinct lack of Silas commentary.  Sure, lots of cute photos, adorable and whatnot.  But no real update as to the current state of the RageBoy.

This is because I have been desperately hoping that he – AT EIGHT MONTHS – would be sleeping through the night and we would be settling down into somewhat of a normal life.  ALAS.  

ALAS, ALAS, ALAS.

Let me first mention a small caveat:  he was sick for nearly three months.  At age four months he caught whatever tenacious respiratory bug Jonathan and I had - - which took both of us four months to get over despite multiple antibiotics, chest x-rays, nebulizers, and inhalers.  He’s better now - finally. 

So at age 3 ½ months he was going 11 hours without eating and sleeping about 10 of those.  And I was able to proudly state (while trying to repress smugness) that all three of my preemie GERDlings were sleeping through the night by age 4 months. 

ALAS. 

Two weeks later – sickness.  Which was a new thing for us because we hardly ever took Jonah and Benjamin out of the house until they were seven months old.  (they were more preemie-ish than Silas and more susceptible to infections, besides feeding two puking machines outside the house was fraught with peril).

And it was a dreadful sickness.  Full of coughing and gagging on mucous and increased reflux episodes.  He cried so much at night he became hoarse at times.  And I was still coughing - so we woke each other up all night long.

Fast-forward (mostly because I can’t remember any of the details due to sleep deprivation) through the next couple months as he slowly got better...   He had gotten used to being luxuriously pampered at night to ease his pain and therefore Stop. The. Screaming.

At age six months, I was desperate.  I refused to pick him up or feed him until at least 5am.  Oh, he reeeeeally wasn’t happy about that.  And would cry for hours at a time.  None of this cry yourself to sleep stuff for this guy... he’s either too stubborn or too stupid.

If I went into detail about some of the things I did and said during these nights, you would call Child Protective Service and they’d declare me an unfit mother.  Which would be a shame, because I can assure you that I am the only person on the planet who could be this kid’s Mom.  Not because I have any magic super powers.  Only because I’m his Mom.  And as stubborn as he is.  Everyone else would’ve deposited him at the local fire station months ago.

(Oh, hello Silas In Later Life... you owe me BIG!!)

((I think I will start a blog post category called “Silas, you owe me BIG.”  Which will comprise his bedtime stories as a teenager in the event he is the kind of teenager his Dad was.  Ahem.  I digress.))

Jonathan developed a deep-tissue massage technique that worked sometimes.  I developed the technique of – after an hour of crying and butt-patting at 3am – walking out of the room, closing the door, walking into another room, closing the door, resting for an hour, then going back – even though he had never stopped crying.

And just take your hand off your phone...  The thing is, even if I did pick him up and/or feed him, he didn’t stop crying.  Sometimes, if you walked around, bouncing him, and blaring loud music, he would quiet down for a while.  Until you stopped doing one of the three because you actually needed an hour or two of sleep.

But we were making good progress with sleeping during the day.  He was learning it was okay to not be held 24/7 and that he really could, in fact, sleep in a bed.  It took 2-3 months, but he did learn to be put down awake in his crib then put himself to sleep.  After 5-45 minutes of crying, naturally.

(to be continued)