Finding A Balance

The last 2 weeks of mommy hood have been really frustrating for me. Blakely who has always been somewhat of a "high needs" baby has decided to stop sleeping, ever. I don't know how she does it but she doesn't sleep maybe an hour or 2. What happened to that literature I read that said babies need like 14-17 hours a day??!! Seriously if she would sleep that many hours a day I could think about possibly complete the mountain and I mean MOUNTAIN of laundry I have in my basement.

Ok so speaking of literature this is where the frustrating parts of being a mom are starting to get to me.

There are many things that frustrate me but I'm just going to talk about sleep.............here's a couple things I've read: 4 month wakefulness period, or 4 month sleep regression whatever the experts want to call it I don't care, I just wish they would decide on the best way to handle it. One lactation consultant writes a really nice article about the developmental milestone at 4 months how breastfed babies start to start being more distracted during the day, wanting to play and watch whats going on around them and forget to eat as much and then at night they want to nurse all night long and want to be close to mommy. You shouldn't let your baby cry it out at night because at night they are hungry and if I let Blakely cry I could lose my milk supply. (Ok, maybe I should back up and state that this is the longest I have exclusively breastfed so this is a whole new mommy world to me that I never shared with my other 2 girls ). Then I go on to read another article that talks about how when babies get to around 4 months they can't get to their REM sleep as easily so its harder for them to get to sleep and back to sleep if the wake up and in this case the baby kind of needs to find out how to soothe themselves and get back to sleep. Both theories kind of make sense....... I don't really know what to do BUT I do know that a tired mom who works evenings that comes home to nurse a baby all night long and then chases around 2 crazy toddlers during the day isn't always a good mom :(

Blakely used to sleep a good 6-7 hour stretch each night, sometimes more. She was fussy more during the day and was always eating. Now she's better during the day and worse at night...not sure which was better.

As moms I feel like we are always being judged, it doesn't matter what you do but it's always judged as good or bad. If I hold Blakely all day and let her co-sleep at night (which I do) then I'm spoiling her too much. But if I let her "cry it out" I'm neglecting her, causing her to give up trust that someone is going to meet her needs. I've decided there has to be a balance.

While I love all 3 of my girls very much I hate that I feel guilty that I don't LOVE holding Blakely 24/7 and sleeping with her every night for the whole night. I'm a total babywearing mom and I read articles about baby wearers and I feel like there is these moms that think I should LOVE wearing her all the time and meeting Blakely's every needs. Blakely's every needs are exhausting me.....if it was up to Blakely I would probably wear her all day long, never put her in her car seat, and never sit down while wearing her, and in fact She would probably just prefer I wear her without my shirt on so she can snack whenever she feels the urge. Blakely would probably also prefer that Teagan and Harper were only around when she wanted to enjoy their entertainment she does not want me to meet the needs of her sisters like feeding them lunch because that means her needs aren't being met. Then at night Blakely would prefer that Brandon didn't sleep in the same bed as us and that she just gets to cozy up next to her mom and eat all night long. I know that this stage wont last forever, and I so desperately want to enjoy every minute of her wanting to be close to me but I also know I need to take care of myself a little bit too or I'm going to end up resenting her and not enjoying any of it which would be way worse.

Hate to say this but we are all born selfish and we all have to learn that there is more then just ourselves in this world. Now at what age we need to start learning this I don't know. There has to be a healthy balance and I'm determined in the next couple of weeks to find this balance so Blakely and I can both be happy :)

Sorry this post is more of just a ramble so I have somewhere to write down what I'm feeling right now.