I'm So Tired

 

I haven't been journaling lately... why? Laziness? Procrastination? Falling off the ladder a little bit? Could be all of the above... but I'm also just so stinking tired. I'm back to attempting to get Ashla to sleep through the night, and it's going even worse than my previous attempts. 

Yes, this is my fourth attempt. In my defense, soon after completing a VERY gentile and VERY slow paced sleep learning attempts each time, which always went very well by the sixth night, Ashla would immediately catch some kind of virus... which would cause me to stay up with her all night nursing her, and put his back at square one. And let me tell you, after being up several nights with a sick kid, I am in no way able to sign up to lose more sleep by attempting to continue to sleep, ugh, learn. 

Anyways, so now the last several nights I've been back at it, and it's going terribly. Normally, I follow this slow regimen where I nurse her throughout the night for three nights, but lay her down while she's still awake, then slowly transition to trying to help her sleep without nursing. She fusses, she doesn't like it, but ultimately goes to sleep. The last three nights she has either been awake, or wrestling around ALL. FUCKING. NIGHT. I'm so tired. I'm bone weary tired. I'm three cups of coffee into the morning and it is doing absolutely nothing for me. I'm so tired I feel kind of sick. 

I don't get it. Maybe because she's getting older and more stubborn. Maybe I didn't go slowly enough? I just don't know what to do anymore. I can't sleep in her bed with her forever. I'm so starved for sleep in my own space. Even when we're not sleep learning she's very active in her sleep. But her wakefulness the last few nights takes the cake. If she goes into a fourth night of not letting me sleep all night, I don't know what I'm going to do. I can't continue to loose sleep, and I can't imagine she's faring much better today either at childcare. But at least she gets to take naps. I get to work all day and hope I don't bang my head on my desk nodding off during my down times.

So do I just go back to nursing her throughout the night? I'm in all these breastfeeding groups, and I would never admit to attempting to get my kid to sleep on my schedule vs. her own because the judgement there is real. I see moms like, "yeah my kid is four and I still nurse them throughout the night." I just can't wrap my head around that. Ashla is 18 months old, and while I don't have plans to wean her (just "night wean" her), I can't imagine breastfeeding at all her past 2. I thought getting to age 1 was going to be a struggle. And in all fairness, Ahsoka spoiled me by self-weaning herself by 15 months old.

But I digress. Sleep. I need it. I'm not getting it. And walking around in a constant fog makes being productive really difficult. I manage to muster the energy to work at my job... and I do the things my kids need me to do. But working on myself just feels so out of reach energy-wise right now. I know self-care is important, but how do you work on yourself when you can barely get through the day?