worried that maybe he was teething or sick or something was terribly wrong, since this is unusual for him, i rocked him and sang to him and cuddled him to calm him down. that took awhile to even work, and once he seemed calm enough, i would lay him back down in his crib, and he would just start wailing again.
finally, after we'd been at this for over an hour, ben came in to give it a try. when nothing was working for him either, i told him to go ahead and give him what was left of the bottle in the fridge. milo ate it, but he still wasn't happy.
at two hours, even though he didn't feel overly warm, i tried to check his temperature telling him, "sorry milo, but when you keep us up for two hours in the middle of the night, we're gonna stick you in the butt to make sure you don't have a sneaky fever." only to discover that the battery in our vick's baby anal thermometer is dead. so i used the forehead scanner one, which supposedly isn't as accurate, but several readings confirmed that he was in perfectly normal temperature range.
at two and a half hours, after one and a half bottles, we were done and frustrated and had no clue what the little man wanted, except maybe to play or be held and rocked all night - which, while i love him dearly, i'm not going to get him into that habit, and even last night i worried that all we were doing was reinforcing more bad habits.
we let him cry (on and off, he would stop for a moment, and then start back up again) for twenty minutes, i went in to check on him, laid him back down, as he was standing at the foot of his bed, and that made him even madder. i left the room, closed the door and told ben that this just confirms it for me, he needs to be on a more regular schedule/routine. (yesterday was completely out of loop for him, as we went to a friend's first birthday party. milo was over-tired and wired at best, excited with all the new people, but sorely in need of a nap, as he hadn't slept well that morning.) ben and others have reassured me that it's okay to not have a routine or schedule because that's not how life works. which is true...
after i had left the room, with milo still upset, he cried for maybe two more minutes, and then finally just stopped, and it was pure silence, except for the sleep-lamb sound-thingy. he slept until 7:30, and when he woke up, he just played in his crib and talked to himself. when i went in to get him, he was sitting at the other end of his crib, facing away from the door, but as soon as he heard my "goodmorning!" entrance, he let out a squeal and raced to the foot of the crib to meet me. it was encouraging to see that letting him cry last night didn't seem to have any ill effect on him.
but as i sit here typing this now, milo is still awake in his crib, mumbling to himself. he hasn't gotten a nap yet today either, and i'm debating whether or not to get him up in ten minutes to drive the half hour to church, for him to play in the nursery for an hour and fifteen minutes, to socialize for maybe fifteen more minutes, and then drive the half hour back home... which would mean he'd be up the whole morning without a nap...
if i don't go, he'll have a better chance of falling asleep and getting a nap in... maybe?
if i do go, it's a guaranteed no-nap (unless he falls asleep in the car, which i was hoping for with the 45 minute drive to the party yesterday... overtired, he screamed and cried for almost the entire ride there, and only slept for maybe twenty minutes on the way back... so suffice it to say, i no longer have any hope that he'll sleep in the car.)
he's been up for almost 3 hours now, and is fussing in his bed.
i hate missing church, but the lack of sleep from last night is starting to hit, and i'm hitting a wall.
this is my rock and a hard place...
do we live our lives and try to get milo to be flexible enough to sleep and eat around our schedules, or do i put my life on hold while i get him into a more predictable and set schedule.
or maybe there's some middle ground, but until we figure out what that is or how that works (or if it'll even work for the little guy), i'm ready to embark on the life of a hermit while we get the schedule thing ingrained in him.
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