Rest your head on your pillow

I've been distracted this week, and a little disturbed, so I've studiously avoided blogging about this particular distraction. Also, I'm pretty sure this particular distraction proves once and for all, if there were any doubt, that I'm a bad mommy.

So, if you've been following, you've heard about J's Fall of Ear Infections. He either had two ear infections that never got cured or six or more infections one after the other starting in September and continuing until just before the holidays. In addition, he had sinusitis and a host of other symptoms from fever to chills to runny noses the likes of which I've never had to be that close to before.

And, he often couldn't breathe well. So he couldn't sleep well unless exhausted. Which meant that nights were relatively fine, but naps were nightmarish. So I started letting him sleep in his swing again. I mean, I didn't think it would work. All the books say that babies grow bored of their swings by 7 months or so. It was a desperation move, really, one very sad, sick day when we were both exhausted, and I was feeling like I had no other choice. And I put him in the swing and he conked right out and slept for 2 hours. And that afternoon, I did it again. And again. And again. And, before, we knew it, J was taking naps in his swing regularly. And that's the bad news.

But the good news was that he was taking regular, long, restorative naps for the first time in his life. He was waking up happy! He was in a great mood in between naps and going down without a whimper. We were both well rested and well adjusted and it was fabulous.

And such a bad idea. I know. I KNOW! So when the new year rolled around, and J was better, I decided to bite the bullet and retrain him to take naps. Again. And again and again and again.

And it's been awful. A half hour of crying and a half hour of sleep. Repeat two times a day since Monday, until yesterday afternoon when he'd fallen asleep in the car, and I couldn't subject him to the inevitable waking up that would come with the crib, so I put him in the swing again and he slept for an hour and a half.

And then today, I put the swing away, like a big girl. And I put him down for his morning nap and he cried for two minutes and went to sleep, like a big boy. And woke up 25 minutes later, cried a few times, and then put himself back to sleep, like a big boy. And slept for a total of an hour, the most this week. And I've played this game before, so I'm not thinking we've turned a corner or a had a breakthrough, but it makes this arduous week a teensy bit less awful. A teeny tiny teensy little bit.