so. we’ve already had a taste of my darling boy. my first born. forever my baby and always a mama’s boy. just in case you don’t know already, he is 6 years old, in kindergarten, and was the most easy going easy baby to take care of you can possibly imagine. we had our moments, but for the most part i couldn’t have asked for a better child. 
on here, he is affectionately known as “K”. since you’ve already met him, we’ll move on to my next spawn….
affectionately known as “E”, she is a firecracker of the most explosive sort…one second happy, one second sad, so adorable it makes my heart hurt, and so difficult i sometimes wonder if she does the things she does just to see my reaction. even now, she is sitting in her playpen with a paci in her mouth staring at me and yelling. just yelling. but ooooooh is she cute while she does it. during the day she yells a lot, but for the most part is smiley and happy as long as she is where she wants to be, and doing what she wants to do. bed time is a thing of nightmares. she gets up every hour, and often wakes up at 5 in the morning and stays up. for those of you who don’t know me personally, i am a night owl. i hate mornings. i would sleep straight through them if i could. but i’m a mom, and have been for the past six and a half years….late mornings are a thing of the past.
back to the sleep thing. so my daughter is 7 months old. for the first two months of her life, she slept GREAT. woke up twice in the night, and slept ’til 7ish. then something changed. i thought it was her reflux medicine not working, so we went through a slew of doctors appointments with no change in her sleep behavior. recently, we doubled the dose of her current medication, and while her behavior during the day changed dramatically for the better, her sleep at night didn’t. finally after gaining many new wrinkles under my eyes and sleep deprivation of epic levels, i decided to move to the couch with her in the pack n play next to me. i didn’t do it for me- because obviously, the couch with her next to me isn’t going to change anything. but for the other occupants of the house? oh yes. my 6 year old son has bags and dark circles under his eyes because our bedroom (where the baby is sleeping) is close enough to his room that he wakes up every time she does. my heart broke every time i looked at him because he was so tired. i’m a mom- i’m wired to deal with sleep deprivation. heck, i volunteered for it! but a 6 year old little boy just doesn’t need that kind off crap yet, you know?
so i moved. 3 nights ago we started sleeping in the livingroom. the wood stove fan is on all night, so we have lots of white noise, and we’re far enough away that her cries won’t wake every occupant in the house. here’s the kicker. she has only gotten up once a night since we moved!!! after two days of her sleeping great, i thought maybe the reason she can’t sleep in our bedroom is because we have a gas heater that kicks on, then off, then on again all night. it’s kinda noisy. maybe it wakes her up? afterall, she didn’t start sleeping like crap until after it got cold outside. so i moved her to her crib in K’s room last night (which we so far only use for naps during the day) and she woke up screaming at 10 when J (my husband) got a shower. so i moved her back to the livingroom. she woke up once after that, and slept until 7!
i think she is an EXTREMELY light sleeper. the fan in the livingroom is really loud, so i think it drowns out nearly all the little creaks, taps, and groans of the house at night. i think i’m going to have to start researching into a decent noise machine for her, because i really want her to sleep in her own room. (the keyword there being SLEEP) i’m sick of not sleeping. i’m sick of the couch. i don’t mind getting up once or twice at night to nurse her, but 6 times a night is ridiculous!
anyways, the whole point of this long narrative was to say that i think we finally figured out why she has such a hard time sleeping at night. i’ll get back to you when i figure out just what to do about it.