Numbers

41 - The number of minutes that it took my little guy to finally cry himself to sleep last night.

56 - The number of minutes that it took me to cry myself to sleep after Charlie was "sleeping."

58 - The number of minutes that he "slept" after crying himself to sleep.

5 - The number of things that I later realized he had thrown up all over and therefore needed to be changed out.

160 - The number of reasons that the Ferber (cry it out) method is not for our family.

4 - The number of hours that we peacefully slept once I gave in and brought him to our bed.

So what can I do? Charlie has turned into the worst sleeper I know. When he was first born, he would regularly sleep 5 hours, especially if it was with me. By 6 weeks, he was in his crib and sleeping through the night. By 3 months, and through month 4, we would regularly get 10 hours straight, though occasionally he would wake up once to nurse.

About month 5 (mid-January, coincidentally.... how do they know??), he started having some issues. I knew that my milk supply was down, so I began nursing him as often as he wanted. Our schedule therefore got a little off, but what do you do when your baby is hungry? So, he learned to go to sleep by nursing. NOT GOOD. Got my milk back up and started to work on falling asleep without me again, and we did OK for the most part. Gone were the 10 hour nights, though. He went from sometimes waking up once a night, to always waking up once, to sometimes waking up twice, to always waking up twice, and now we are at always waking up THREE times and sometimes waking up FOUR!!

I truly cannot do it anymore. It would be one thing if he was my only child and I could sleep some during the day. And Kailyn has been an absolute angel - she will sit and watch Super Why! and Sesame Street as long as I need her to, but that's not exactly the kind of parent I want to be. So, for lack of anything else to try, I gave the Ferber method a go last night. It was horrible. The sound of Charlie screaming for help was the most horrible sound I think that I have ever heard. I felt so guilty that I could not go help my baby, but I realize that he needs the sleep as much as I do. And now that I have another baby to take care of, we all really need the shut eye. I have got to get him to sleep more one way or the other.

So what do I do? I don't think that the "cry it out" way is for me. But do I tough it out and try again? Is it normal for them to get so upset that they throw up?

We've had to start supplementing and Brian suggested maybe we should try some soy formula. As soon as Charlie wakes up we are headed to the store to get some and see if that helps.

Do I stop fighting it and let him sleep with us for a few weeks to get him back on a good sleep schedule? A big part of this all, I think, is that he really likes to snuggle. Does he know that his time as "the baby" is limited, so he's banking it up?

I don't know what the answer is. I am nervous that if he does sleep with me, I'll have a new battle to fight when I try to get him back in his crib. I had no problems getting either of my guys in the crib the first time, but they were both pretty young when they stopped sleeping with me.

What I do know is that I am at my absolute wits end. The combination of no-sleep (I am averaging 5 hours a night, broken up into 1-hour, then 2-hours, then 1-hour, then 1-hour), and the hormones that come along with a new pregnancy have made me a wreck. If you'd like to send me an email with your thoughts, I'll take them =).