One week down, five to go

Times are crazy, and I am ill equipped. My husband is working full time and going to school full time. I am working full time and caring for a child full time. We are about to move. My, I am tired.

I think I misrepresented my husband a bit in my last post. He is quite helpful. It’s just that while I was staying at home, I opted to be Ben’s night time caregiver because I could sleep all day with him and Chris couldn’t. I didn’t want him to have to suffer all night and all day from lack of sleep. The weekends, however, were a different story. And now that I am back at work, we switch off with each other.

I started working again on Monday. My computer login was disabled while I was on leave. Lovely. I actually knew about this ahead of time and asked my supervisor to submit the form necessary to open my login again. She did her part, but apparently the security team took their sweet time about it. So I couldn’t do anything half the day before they activated it for me. And then on Thursday, it happened again. And also today. Annoying, yes.

I found a home day care really close to work, so I can see Ben at lunch and nurse him. The lady seems really nice, and she only has a couple of other children in her care. She has a rocking chair she lets me use to nurse him in. She also gives us a written report every day on when he ate and slept and how much and how his day was. It’s really nice. And for the record, I’m really glad I’m on Prozac right now. I’d been taking the whole day care thing extremely well. I was surprised, but I figured it was easier because I get to see Ben at lunch time. And then I forgot to take my dose on Wednesday, which didn’t affect me until Thursday. I bawled all the way to work and cried at my desk. I could barely function. I had very real ideas of going to pick Ben up and going home with him for good. I felt so horrible. But by lunch time, my Thursday dose kicked in and I felt much better. I hope I don’t have to be on this long term, but I can appreciate being on it now.

Pumping is going fairly well. I still don’t particularly like it, but my milk supply is increasing so it’s getting easier. And I have to pump like crazy. Right now I’m pumping four times a day, twice before lunch and twice after. I’m only supposed to pump twice at work on my two breaks, but I can’t only pump twice. I don’t get nearly enough milk. I’m so surprised at how much Ben eats. That kid can really put it away. But I do also realize that he could also be comfort eating or the sitter offers him a bottle and he takes if even if he’s not really hungry. Either way, I have to have the milk available for him. So far, so good, but I do stress about it. I realize it wouldn’t be the end of the world if he had to have some formula to supplement my milk, but I would just rather not have that happen if I can help it. I’m trying to help it.

Our sleep rollercoaster continues. Ben has much better days after he’s had a lot of sleep, so I’ve been trying to get him to sleep earlier. Getting him to sleep at 8:30 doesn’t seem to be a problem at the moment. But if I want him to stay asleep, I have to go to bed with him, too. He still won’t sleep for long periods of time by himself. I just don’t have it in me to try and get him to sleep in his bed while I’m working. I’ll get so much less sleep that way. So I’m hoping to start helping him to be comfortable sleeping by himself when I stop working. Then I can be there for him when he wakes up in the night and I won’t feel like a zombie the next day, or worse, resent Ben for making me a zombie.

Sorry I don’t update more. I can’t make any promises to update more right now either. In the meantime, you should read this article. I laughed so much, it made Ben start giggling hysterically. And yes, I think butts and poop are funny.