updating late again

So, I know you all have bored about hearing of Jason's sleep habits (or lack of sleep,I should say). To be honest it had become such a way of life that I stopped posting about it, not to mention that it would be a bit old to whine about it daily. Unfortunately though it was starting to affect EVERYONE in the house and was really bad. I thought I'd remedy that by buying some earplugs for the family so that they wouldn't hear him if I decided to let him cry. It didn't think it was in anyone's best interest for him to be getting up every hour or so, often crying for long periods even after I fed him, and then waking for good often by 3:30 or 4:00. And the family waking with him. Yes, it was that bad.

That night I put the earplugs in Tyler's ears. They were the wax kind that molds easily and were supposedly "cushion soft". What they didn't mention was that they were very sticky. After a LONG night with Jason with us both repeatedly waking, feeding him, etc, I finally let him cry. And he cried and cried and finally fell back to sleep. I finally fell back to sleep, only to be woken up by Tyler screaming frantically as an earplug was stuck in his hair. Unfortunately I got to him a little too late, and he had already pulled a chunk of his hair out. So sad. So Tyler's screaming woke Jason back up and the whole family was up by 5:20. If it weren't so sad and pathetic it would actually be comical. But I had had enough.

That week I was noticing that Tyler wasn't hearing (regular conversation, unfortunately he COULD hear the crying). Figured he had fluid in his ears, but he seemed to be feeling fine. By Tuesday or Wednesday of last week he started coughing again, that annoying croupy deep cough. Then the greenish mucus came. By Thursday morning (the morning of the earplug incident) I decided to call for an appointment. Due to Jason's HORRENDOUS sleep the past month, I decided to make appointments for both of them. I pulled Ty out of school and brought them in. Tyler had fluid in both ears, as well as the start of an ear infection. They started him on an antibiotic, which will be the death of me (to be discussed later). Turns out that they feel Jason is fully healthy but ridiculously stubborn. They suggested I let him "cry it out". No going in to feed him at all.

So thursday I let him cry. He cried about 45 minutes at bedtime (his totally normal routine, but he just decided to cry anyway). Then he woke up at some point after midnight and cried for about 1.5 hours. Horrendous, but necessary. He then woke up in the early morning and cried for about another 45 minutes. And fell back to sleep, until a decent hour (I can't remember now, but somewhere between 5 and 6)! He didn't wake up starving to death, so that reassured me that he hadn't really needed the overnight feedings to begin with. Friday night he cried too, but not as much. And Saturday night he slept through. Woohoo!! I felt like a new person. I accomplished more before 8:00am that day than I had by noon that whole past month!

Overnight we had gotten some snow. Only maybe 2 inches, but plenty for Tyler to play in on Sunday!









On Monday Jason started speech. His therapist seems very nice, and I'm hoping we can make some gains. They want us working on more sign language, because they are not sure he's capable of making the sounds yet. So we reviewed the signs we already do (more, please, and thank you) and she suggested working on "open", "in", and "out". She also had him trying to imitate some facial expressions and movements with his tongue. Tyler was happy because he got a "date" with my mom to the library and lunch that afternoon to get him out of the house!