Here I go again on my own.....

This is the second week that I've had to take care of the boys by myself, since Gavin has been born.  The first week was about a month ago, between the time my mom left and my mother-in-law arrived.  This week is also the first week that Jackson has been in preschool two days a week, which means that I have to get him, myself and Gavin all ready to go and out the door by about 8:40.  Today we got to school 10 minutes early, so I'm giving myself a giant pat on the back for that one.  

We were all majorly spoiled when the grandmas were here.  They cooked, cleaned and helped with kids.  Jackson has been especially spoiled, which is to be expected, but I was a little worried that he would come crashing down after everyone left.  Left with his boring old mommy that does boring things, like cooking and cleaning and taking care of the baby.   He has definitely been acting out lately.  I don't know if it's because of the baby or if it's just because he's three, but this has definitely been the hardest time I've had parenting him, yet.  (BTW, everyone warns you that the terrible two have nothing on a three year old.  I didn't want to believe it when he was two, thinking that it could get worse, but it totally does.  Sorry to all you parents of two year old's.  Maybe your kid will be the exception....)   

 

He has done better this week than I expected though. One reason is that I've all but given up on napping him during the day and just moved his bedtime up about an hour.  He just won't nap.  And I'm really starting to think that he's just not tired enough yet.  He will easily nap when he's tired, like on the days when we go to the pool or the zoo.  But I'm learning that if he's not tired, there's nothing I can do to make him nap.  I'll try for hours and hours (literally, sometimes as many as 4 hours) to get him to nap.  Putting him back in his room, listening to him scream and cry.  For hours.  And on the very rare occasion that he actually does fall asleep (usually after at least 2 hours of crying) he's not tired at night and it takes me a couple hours to get him down then too.  I just don't have that kind of time or patience.  But if I don't nap him, he usually goes right down at an early bedtime without a major fuss.  Saving me anywhere from 4-6 hours a day of tantrums.  I'm too sleep deprived to have 6 hours of tantrums in my life. 

Speaking of sleep deprivation, I'm still on pretty much the same schedule with Gavin as I have always been.  He gets up every three hours, almost to the minute. Averaging me about 5-6 hours of very interrupted sleep a night, depending on how quickly I can get him to fall back asleep after feedings. I'm not used to that at all.  Jackson gave me up to 5 hours, even his first week home from the hospital.  And with Jackson, I could sleep when he slept during the day.  With Gavin, I'm up all day, because now I have another child that isn't sleeping during the day at all, and I can't just take a nap and not watch him.  I'm thinking of asking the doctor if she thinks he might have reflux though.  He's showing a lot of the symptoms of it and if he does actually have it and we get some medicine in him, we could maybe get a little more sleep out of him at night.

But we are hanging in there, and it's getting easier every day.