Our Five Ring Circus: In the Wee Hours of the Night, We Both Lost Our Minds

Thursday, June 3, 2010

In the Wee Hours of the Night, We Both Lost Our Minds

Last night was a long and memorable night. Although I'd like to put this one in the "Please Don't Remember This" file.

I'm used to getting bouts of insomnia, and logging in late nights, but last night went beyond the norm.

I headed to bed around 2 AM. That gave me plenty of time to log in 7 1/2 hours before the kids woke up. I was just about to drift off when Lexie woke me up with her screaming.

Despite being stubborn and full of attitude, Lexie is a great sleeper. She goes to sleep on her own, and we typically don't hear from her until she wakes up in the morning, yelling, "I'm awake! I'm awake! I'm awake!" She began sleeping in 6 hour stretches when she was 5 days old, so with the exception of a few (not so difficult now that I look back) nights when she had a fever or was teething, I've been incredibly lucky.

I went in and calmed her down, and returned to bed. Several minutes later, the screaming resumed. Back in her room, I assessed the situation. No fever, no nightmare, she was acting normal when I was in there, and I had just taken her to the bathroom and given her a drink. Everything was fine.

Back in my bed, I decided to ignore her. The problem is, I can't sleep through that, even with the fan on full blast. An hour later, I returned to her room and begged and pleaded with her to tell me what was wrong. I attempted to cuddle with her, and she just jerked back and forth, whining. Ignoring her didn't work. Removing her from the crib didn't work. Cuddling her didn't work. There was nothing physically wrong with her, and I was at a loss. Dylan had night terrors when he was younger, and this was not a night terror.

As the hours (yes, hours...of screaming) ticked by, I grew increasingly frustrated. My calm demeanor was gone, and I resorted to threatening and raising my voice. That didn't work either. By this point, she was in hysterics, and crying so hard that she was gasping for air, and couldn't talk.

Then, it got weirder. Three hours after the screaming began, I walked into her room and she was sitting up in the crib, staring at the wall, and screaming about spider webs. I turned on the light, showed her that there weren't any webs or spiders, and she calmed down. Briefly. The next time I went in, she was screaming, "Get off! Get off of my blankie, bugs!" and swatting at her blanket. Once again, I showed her that there weren't any bugs. It was as if she screamed so much that she was hallucinating from lack of oxygen!

As I watched the night turn into morning, I began to lose my mind. The tears came as I watched the clock creep closer to 6 AM. I finally walked into her room, in tears, and told her that she needed to go to sleep. Now.

Maybe it was my tears or maybe it was the fact that she was worn out, but she finally fell asleep....and woke up perfectly normal 4 hours later.

11 comments:

  1. oh my gooness that does not sound like a fun night at all. Poor girl and poor mom. Alex has had a few late nights because of growing pains!

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  2. Holy cow. what a night! I'm so sorry you went through that. I hope you all get much better sleep tonight!

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  3. That does not sound like a fun night! My middle son does that sometimes too. He used to wake up all the time saying his legs hurt, and last night we woke up crying that he was thirsty but getting a drink didn't calm him down. I hope last night was a one time thing for you!

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  4. Oh geez. I feel for you!! We've been having a lot of crazy nights similar to this in our house. I definitely would have cried after that many hours too.

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  5. Oh wow...I think I would have went out to my car to sleep at that point. Glad she finally settled down.

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  6. Ughh! Maybe it was a full moon last night? T was up at 4 am, and ultimately ended up in my bed, and kicked me the rest of the morning until we got up at 8 :(

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  7. Awe! Maybe she will remember once she's up moving around. I hope you don't have anymore nights like that!

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  8. Poor little sweetie and mommy too! These are the moments that make us stronger even though when we are going through it, we are losing our minds! I hope the night went better for you! :-)

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  9. Nights like that are killer. Hope last night went much, much better!

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  10. Oh my goodness! What a night! Did you ever figure out what was going on with her? Poor Lexie and poor MOMMY!!!

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  11. Oh I feel for you! I remember having some nights like that. I hope you get to catch up on your sleep this weekend. You deserve it, mama!

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