Thursday, May 17, 2007

The Root of My Fear of Baby #3

It occurred to me this morning that my biggest issue with having this baby (other than the thought of being alone in a store or mall with all three kids, which I can hopefully avoid) is the fear that it A) will be really needy like the boys were and not let me put it down EVER, ruining my routine and cleaning schedule, and B) will not sleep through the night or nap properly for at least a year, like the boys did. Roanen's crying is also fresh in my mind so I'm afraid of that too, but I'm also convinced that he was just a freak of nature and that couldn't possibly happen again. But when it comes down to it, I'll be able to deal as long as it sleeps well, preferably falling asleep on its own without me in the room and without a soother (which I am still totally against for my kids, for some reason). Although I'm pretty good with waking up at night and not being totally exhausted on zero sleep, I just don't want to deal with another year of dragging myself out of bed 20 times a night and nursing around the clock until I hate nursing. I hear some people complaining about their kids not eating a lot of solids, or other minor (to me) irritations and my mind screams "BUT YOU CAN DEAL WITH THOSE THINGS BECAUSE YOUR CHILD SLEPT 12 HOURS STRAIGHT LAST NIGHT AND NAPS 5 HOURS A DAY!!!" I don't think I had the most difficult children in the world by any means, and in fact they both snapped out of their bad sleeping habits quite well (albeit after far too long in my opinion), but I think sleep problems are probably one of the hardest "normal" issues to deal with and I had two bad sleepers. I feel that I'm due for a good sleeper and will do everything in my power (except the soother, although I know that would probably work like a charm) to get this baby into good sleeping habits from the beginning, if only to save my sanity.

2 comments:

Lara said...

I'm all about the babywearing. With some good slings, wraps, etc (and you've already got a bunch) you can do just about anything you've been doing now with the new baby strapped to you :)

Anonymous said...

I don't even want to do the babywearing anymore if I don't have to. It's exhausting trying to clean like that, not safe cooking like that (unless they're really small and not grabby), and I don't want this baby getting used to being carried around. I like the idea of attachment parenting, but apparently not the reality of it :)