Two nights ago, after Kate had fallen asleep for a while and Den and I had gone to bed, I felt a heavy shadow pressing down on me – one that had nothing to do with the struggles Kate was facing. In my bed in the dark I felt so alone. It was more than just the alone after moving the baby to her old room… it was the cold, panicky alone that I felt after Devin died. I haven’t felt that way in a very long time, but then I haven’t been alone at night in a year and a half. The nights were always the worst for me, when the gremlins in my mind would come out and pick away at my sanity. I understand why sleeping with Kate was always such a comfort for me, to be able to feel her warmth, to wake up and immediately remember where and when I am. When she is sleeping peacefully in the next room it’s too easy to forget.

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I am feeling much better about things now that we’ve changed our approach. Kate is still confused and a little upset, but a little bit of tired whimpering is all she’s doing. She’s learned very quickly to lay down on my hand. It’s clear that is not what she would prefer, but since she is barred from climbing on top of me she is settling for it. In the middle of the night it was very quickly that she fell back asleep, very little crying if any.

Falling asleep for naps is taking longer than I’m used to, I’m used to nursing her and holding her until she’s out in 3 minutes flat. But while she does spend a few minutes playing with her little blanket and stuffed animal she’s only doing it for a few minutes until she realizes she’s tired, whimpers, and lays down. It’s taking far longer for her to fall asleep after laying down – lots of fidgeting, patting her mattress, grabbing the crib slats, grabbing at my hand, whimpering, etc. If I remove my hand from the crib she sits up and gives a little cry, however after the intial patting and grabbing of my hand she’s actually fallen asleep on her own without touching me. That was entirely unexpected. As she’s falling asleep she’s been opening her eyes to make sure it’s still there in sight, so I just hold position until she’s asleep. In a day or two I’ll remove my hand and see if she can settle without it.

The question for me is about night feeding. Since she is used to nursing all night and has been very distracted and not nursing much during the day I didn’t want to cut her off at night – I don’t want my supply to suddenly nosedive and I want to make sure she gets enough calories. So I think it will have to be a slow changeover by necessity. The past two nights I nursed her twice and I woke up feeling very full… apparently she was nursing more at night than I realized. I was even able to pump off an extra bottle last night and probably could have pumped more. I’m glad to have the extra milk because we want to start getting her drinking out of a sippy cup but I have very little saved in the freezer (we operate on “I pump to replace what’s used that evening” so we only have about 12oz in the freezer at any given time).

So, progress. And I’m no longer having a breakdown, which is good.