đ©When your baby doesnât sleep
Before Reina was born, everyone got their room; my wife took the master bedroom, I took the next room as my home office, and Joanna took her room. It worked out well for us.
We made adjustments when Reina was born, which also worked out fine initially since she slept in the bassinet in our bed for a while.
Also, my mom was here to help us for a month, so I set up a single bed in my office to accommodate her while she stayed. My wife and I planned to have Joanna transition from the crib into the new mattress after my mom left. However, we didnât execute our plan right away; we were sleep deprived of taking care of Reina and werenât ready to deal with Joanna walking out of her room during the night.
A few months later âand Reina was still waking up every two to three hours at nightâ my wife and I decided to put her bassinet into the bed in the office so that we could sleep-train her as we did with Joanna. It was certainly better than having the bassinet next to us, but since she occupied the room, I got kicked out of my office in the evening.
When your baby doesnât sleep through the night, nothing is more critical than ensuring her sleep.
So I put up with it for as long as possible, getting my work done from my laptop or iPad, but getting kicked out of my room sucked regardless of the reason.
đ€Šđ»ââïžTrial and error
Reina grew out of her bassinet in January, and in March, we finally switched Joannaâs crib with Reinaâs bed.
Thank God Joanna loved her new bed, but Lord have mercy on me; Reina didnât like being caged.
And since the crib was much smaller than the single bed, her crying would echo even louder.
On a good day, my wife and I were still feeding her twice; on a bad day, she would throw up everything she took, and hell went loose.
I donât know how many things weâve changed to see if she would sleep through the night, and we werenât sure if it was because she was hungry or a growth spurt or teething. Everything we did, with our best intention, never seemed to be working.
On a selfish note, I also wanted my office back at night. Judge me all you want, but it is what it is.
đ«Žđ»I want my office back.
âMaaaahhhhhine!â
Joanna would scream every time Reina touched her toys.
I grew up as an only child, so I donât know what itâs like to grow up with siblings, but seeing how my privilege has been taken away, I can see where Joannaâs anger comes from.
I selfishly wanted my office back. I spent a lot of effort working on my dream office and hated that I couldnât use it.
âMaaaahhhhhine!â
So after a long train of thought, I purchased a giant curtain with movable poles, hoping that the curtain would block the monitor light and be soundproof.
I also applied WD-40 on the door hinge to silence the squeaky noise every time I open the door.
It kind of worked as expected.
Using my office at night wasnât how it used to be; I had to set everything into a dark theme because it was too bright, and I couldnât use my mechanical keyboard because it was too loud.
Whatever, I can live with that for now.
So I kept myself as quiet as possible on my computer, and when Reina started crying, I would feed her on the spot and put her back to sleep.
She didnât seem to mind sharing the room.
âItâs my office, damn it!â
âšThe silver lining
After I installed the curtain, my wife complained that she kept tripping on the curtain pole at night, so I rearranged my desk and the curtain last Sunday afternoon. I didnât move Reinaâs crib, so I wasnât expecting anything special.
As usual, I went to sleep around 10 pm after I fed Reina, expecting to be woken up around 1 am, but I slept through the night and woke up just before 6 am for my morning workout. I assumed my wife took care of feeding her, but when I asked her about it, she thought I fed her.
âWait, what just happened?â
We were both surprised that she slept through, but we also didnât want to assume that she would sleep through the night from now on. There were a few nights that she slept relatively well, giving us false hope and destroying our dreams the next day.
Still, there was a glimpse of hope, a silver lining.
đIt might be for real this time.
We put Reina to sleep around 8 pm throughout the week, and she would only wake up once at night.
âPraise the Lord. Weâve been waiting for this for a year.â
Her upgraded sleeping schedule has been very consistent over the week. So Iâm very hopeful that Iâll get some good sleep from now on.
How was your week?
Thanks for reading!
Thanks Han. This week has been rough for sleep in our household. Scarlett has been dreaming a lot and wants comfort while Sophia is recovering from the flu. Man it is hard to function work wise without sleep. Hope your silver lining continues.