half-way point

Last week was a very long work week for Zach.  He worked at least 12-14hrs each day, along with the Saturday before (and would have been Sunday, too, except it was Mothers Day).  Of course, when Zach works a 14hr day that means I do, too.  We got a short break this weekend, but then tomorrow morning he leaves to go on a business trip, returning late Friday night.  We'll then leave Saturday morning to drive to the bay area for a friend's wedding.

Give me a moment for my head to stop spinning... ok, I'm good now.

It's times like these when I'm so incredibly grateful for BB, our nanny.  Her arm is still healing from a recent elbow fracture so she can't do much with Quinn, but her time with Donovan has been an invaluable, sanity-preserving help for me.  She's been more than worth making room for in the budget, I'll tell you that.

When I looked ahead to this two-week period, I could see that my biggest challenge would be bedtimes.  Donovan and Quinn get tired at about the same time at night, and so usually go to bed at about the same time (7-8pm).  Because of how their bedtimes (and temperaments at that time of the evening) go, I was pretty sure juggling them both would mean having to leave one (or both of them, alternately) to cry at some point for some length of time.  So, I decided to go ahead and try to sleep train Quinn.  If he's gonna cry anyway I might as well have some structure/goal to it, right?

Thankfully, it's gone pretty well.  He cried for 30 minutes on 2 different nights, other nights lasted between 5-15 minutes, and now (just over 1 week into it) he's gone to sleep with zero crying, twice.  The first 3 nights he slept for 10 hours solid, which was amazing.  Since then he's been waking up once or twice again, which is fine by me-- I had no plans to night-wean him yet, so I go to him, feed him, then set him back down (he hasn't cried at all in the middle of the night, a surprise as before starting this I had to get him back to a deep sleep otherwise he'd wake & fuss).  I tried doing naps, too, but while he'd fall asleep the naps didn't seem as restful and he'd be tired and cranky during the day. So I'm back to holding/wearing him for naps, and his mood seems better.

I know this is a controversial topic, and I respect that others feel strongly against it.  But this is honestly what felt like made the most sense for us, and what I needed to get through these couple of weeks of solo night parenting.  Knowing I can get him to sleep so easily is like a huge weight off my shoulders.  Evenings are the only time I get a true break/chance to do anything productive, and I do so much better when I can get an hour or 2 to get other things done and still get to bed at a decent hour.

And now, I'll leave you with these: