The Goal: Survival

My writing buddy
while Dan and Kenz are
out hiking.

We have had good days and some very, very bad ones.

Warning: There is no real lesson or organization to this post. I am just trying to get it all out there in the hopes that someone will have some life changing advice for me, or maybe someone out there, who is going through the same thing, won't feel alone.

Nights are really going great. Ketcher has witching hours just like all babies, but he tends to sleep consistently from midnight to 7am, with only 1 feeding during that time. I barely feel sleep deprived, although my moodiness and short fuse say otherwise.

I am not sure why the newborn diapers are sliding down around Ketcher's ankles. He isn't THAT small. Three mornings a row I woke up and noticed wet spots on his swaddle and his diaper was literally at his ankles. Don't be confused about the wet spots, it's poop. It's always poop.

Kenzie is starting to pay a little more attention to Ketch. Yesterday she started helping hold the bottle when we bottle feed. That is wonderful to see, but she also dropped the tub of Vaseline right on the little guys face, so it's a give and take.

Time bomb is probably an understatement these days. Kenzie thrives on routine and her routine went out the window when I went into labor last tuesday. New people feeding her, putting her to sleep, etc. She is still sick with a runny nose and teething. She is apparently hungrier and more tired than usual, which might be a growth spurt. It's a perfect storm of misery for all of us.

We are trying to cope through trial and error... mostly a lot of error. The goal now is to keep her belly full and make sure she isn't tired. I would love to have on disney movies all day to keep her distracted, but the more screen time she gets, the more of a nightmare she becomes, so we put the kibosh on all screen time.

I have been keeping a bowl of snacks out. Today I decided to just feed her lunch at about 9:45 because she seemed hungry. She gobbled up a PBJ and was content for about 30 mins.

Since January she has consistently taken 1 nap starting sometime between noon and 1pm.  The last few days we have had to adjust her naps times.  Today she went down at 10:15am because she totally lost control and couldn't stop screaming and crying.  I am pretty sure by the end she had no idea what started it in the first place.

When she loses control she doesn't want hugs or comfort in the traditional sense. So without sound or emotion, I take her into her room and do the usual bedtime rituals which seems to help a lot: Turn on sound machine, close drapes, put her in her sleep suit, turn off the lights. She climbs into bed and usually the crying is more of a whimper at that point. I give her kisses which makes her laugh and even if she doesn't sleep, it stops the out-of-control crying and screaming. Although so far she falls asleep every time.

I don't know if it is just because she is 18 months old and this is normal, or if it really is just a perfect storm of stuff happening all at once. We just really want our Kenzie back, that was here last Monday. With that said, I am sure she just wants her old life back. I don't know when we will find a new normal, or what that will look like, but I am hopeful that it will be better than this.