Work and (more) Sleep Issues

I'd like to be blogging more, and I often have ideas for blog posts in my head, but never have both the time and the energy (at the same time) to actually get them written. I'm working on it, but it may be hard for a while. This one, like many others, is being written at work (ssshhhhh!)...

Speaking of work... I need a new job. I like my job, but I need a new one. Because Jordyn and I both need more consistency in our lives. A job with my (lack of) schedule - working three days a week, but not the same three days every week, with two of those days being 12-hour shifts and one being a 6-hour shift, with odd hours, with the vast majority of days being until midnight, with having to work weekends and holidays - is not a good job for a single parent!

I realize that a new job will come with it's own set of challenges. Nothing's perfect, especially any job. I won't be able to do some of the fun things with Jordyn that we do now. But we can only go to the new mom and baby groups we've been going to until Jordyn is a year old. And that's coming sooner than I can possibly believe! And we can probably find fun music or whatever classes to take on the weekends. We won't be able to have playdates on weekdays anymore. And probably most of the people we have playdates with want to spend time with their husbands/fathers as a family on weekends. We won't be able to do some of the free play groups offered by our town's family network, although they do occasionally have events on weekends. I'd likely have to work 40 hours/week, instead of the 30 hours/week I work now. I wouldn't occasionally have four or five days off in a row, without using any vacation time. I wouldn't be as close to a stay-at-home mom as I am now.

But there has to be something said for having a consistent, set schedule. For having more of a routine. For being able to sleep in my own bed 7 (gasp!) nights a week. For being able to go to sleep before 1am 7 nights a week (let's face it, I'm in for a *long* time of early morning wakeups!). For having the ability to do sleep training of some sort with Jordyn (which seems to be needed lately, see below). For being off every weekend and holiday. For having an easier, more consistent childcare situation. For being home every night for dinner with Jordyn, and for her bedtime. For eventually being home every night to help with homework. For not having to work my work - and therefore life - schedule around three other people's (the four of us self-schedule by the month, and we have to help each other out so no one has to work on a day they can't or don't want to, etc.). And for... someday... having baby #2 (?!?). I definitely can't have a second child with my current work situation - I'd need something more "normal" in terms of work schedule if there's any hope of making it with two kids!

In the meantime... I feel stuck. I can't leave my job until I have a new one, and there aren't any open positions in areas with more of a Monday through Friday, 9-5 type schedule. Plus, even if/when something opens up, I have to interview for it, it's not just an easy switch. I know for a fact I wouldn't like it as much as where I am now. I could leave the hospital and do something else... but what?? I have no idea what else I'm even qualified for or what type of job I could get. Not to mention what else I'm really interested in. I like what I do. Plus, anything else I could potentially do would probably mean a pay cut, which I really can't afford. Again, I feel stuck.

What has led me to this revelation? Well, I've been sort of thinking about the job thing for a while now, but lately... Jordyn has been having sleep issues, which means *I've* had sleep issues, and working until so late does *not* help!

I honestly think the problem is that she's SO dependent on her Baby Merli.n's Magic Slee.psuit that she can't sleep without it. If you're not familiar, it's supposed to be used to wean a baby off of the swaddle when she gets too big/old for swaddling but still needs it. In Jordyn's case, I used it instead of the swaddle, because she hated being swaddled. It looks sort of like a snowsuit, but without a hood and without the hands and feet being covered, and it's made of several layers of fabric, making it thick enough give the baby a snug feeling and to muffle the startle response. Jordyn's been sleeping in it every night since she was around 9 or 10 weeks old. There are only two sizes; I tried to wean Jordyn off of it when she was growing out of the small size, to no avail, but now she's getting closer to growing out of the large size, and it's a problem! I don't know what to do. I either need to somehow wean her off of it or figure out how to jerry-rig my own slee.psuit in a larger size.

Weaning her off of the slee.psuit would involve some sort of sleep training with likely many sleepless nights. I know this because I tried to wean her off of it a few days ago, with horrific results. Before that, she'd had a cold and was so stuffy she couldn't sleep because she couldn't breathe. She ended up sleeping in a bouncy seat (at her doctor's suggestion from when we went in for her last cold) for three nights, in her slee.psuit, of course! She acted slept pretty well like that. Either right before or right after her cold, she hadn't been sleeping well for what seemed like another reason, but I couldn't figure out what. She would cry out in her sleep, wake up for seemingly no reason in the middle of the night, and sleep very restlessly when I finally gave up and brought her into bed with me (and it was pretty hard to get her to sleep at all). I thought she was teething, but she didn't get any new teeth. And she was perfectly fine during the day, if a little tired. She sometimes seemed to be arching her back and trying to roll, which she can't do in the slee.psuit, so I thought maybe she wanted more freedom of movement, and decided to try again to transition her out of it.

My grand plan was to put her in a slee.pSACK with the wings that velcro across her chest (like a swaddle, but I left her arms out); I thought the wings would maybe give her enough of a "snug" feeling around her chest that it would serve as an intermediate step before putting her in a wingless sleepsack.

Nope. Big, epic fail. I tried it for two nights. She slept like crap, on and off, the first night. The second was worse - way worse. I arrived home from a 12-hour workday at 12:45am and Jordyn was awake and crying before I even got upstairs. The babysitter said she'd been waking up every 15 minutes for a while. We were up until 3 something, slept til maybe 5 something, then slept again from 5 something else until 7 something. So I *maybe* pieced together a total of about 4 hours of sleep. Jordyn slept more than I did, but very restlessly (which again made me think she was teething, but still no teeth). I had another 12-hour workday ahead of me, and I had brought sleep deprivation to a whole new level. I'm not sure I could've spelled my own name. There was absolutely no way I was going to be able to function and make it through a 12-hour workday until midnight again. My dad picked Jordyn up a little earlier than usual, I went back to sleep, and went in to work 2 hours and 45 minutes late. It was truly the best I could do.

I got really, really frustrated and discouraged that second night, when Jordyn just would not sleep despite obviously being very tired, I was exhausted from many nights of bad sleep plus just having worked 12 hours and knowing I had another 12 hour day to go. I tried everything, even cry it out. I decided to give it 20 minutes, at which point I'd go pick her up if she was still crying. She somehow managed to fall asleep after 16 minutes, and I was briefly kind of excited that it had worked, and in complete amazement at the same time, although I also felt really guilty. But then she kept crying out in her sleep every few minutes for a while, and then she eventually just woke up and cried. So it didn't reallly work, and she was obviously distressed. And I felt horrible, and I've now decided that CIO is just NOT for us. I won't be doing it again. But at one point, when I first put her in her bed to CIO, I was so frustrated and exhausted that I went in my room, put in earplugs, lay down on my bed, and cried. Really bawled, like I haven't in quite some time. She ended up in bed with me, which is pretty much what inevitably happens whenever she wakes up in the middle of the night. I don't think either of us get good sleep that way, but I get more than if I'm just totally awake.

The next night, at my parents' house, she slept fine... in her slee.psuit. And last night, at our house, she slept fine... in her slee.psuit. So fine, that I woke up BEFORE her (I'd gone to sleep pretty early!), and went to check on her, because it was almost 8:00! Eleven hours after I'd put her in her crib. Go figure.

So I've started to research sleep training methods, and I think I want to try pick up/put down (P.U/PD). But here's the thing... With my crazy work schedule, there's no way I can implement any sleep training method with enough consistency for it to work. It would have to involve four different people in two different places, and we'd all have to be doing the same things in the same ways. Yeah, right. The other night, when I got to my parents' house after work, I saw that my dad hadn't put on the humidifier in Jordyn's room, which is supposed to be on every night, not just when she has a cold (per her doctor, it will supposedly help with her dry skin/excema). The next morning, he told me he'd forgotten to turn on her white noise before she fell asleep, and ended up putting it on after she was already sleeping (this was him trying to tell me that the white noise doesn't do anything, because apparently he doesn't believe me when I tell him that it helps to KEEP her asleep as she goes through sleep cycles, not just help her fall asleep). He also doesn't agree that the problem is the slee.psuit in the first place, but I maintain that it is (we seriously can't agree on anything when it comes to Jordyn!). My mom has told me she's picked Jordyn up and rocked her to sleep in her arms, even after I'd told her not to, because she couldn't help it, because she (my mom) really needed the hugs and cuddling (she's stressed about my brother, who was discharged, but is now back in the hospital). How am I supposed to get my parents to implement a strict sleep training regime??

Which brings me full circle to... I need a new job!

Oh, and let's not even talk about naps, which Jordyn fights tooth and nail these days, at least when we're at home. When we're out and about she'll fall asleep in her bucket carseat either in the car or while we're walking or whatever, but we have no good nap system for when we're at home. I need to work on this, too, and want to do P.U/PD, but my parents would need to do the same, and the babysitter. I just don't see it working... But if she went to a traditional childcare center, I bet they'd have her napping on a schedule and in her crib in no time!

I contacted the slee.psuit company asking for advice on weaning her off of it (via their FB page), and they responded saying only that some parents try layering cotton pajamas under other pajamas. I guess I could try that. I've also thought about putting baby leg warmers on her arms and legs over her pajamas, or coming up with some way to jerry-rig a slee.psuit using a snowsuit or something, but I'm afraid she'd overheat in a snowsuit. Any ideas? Anyone ever dealt with a baby addicted to a slee.psuit before?!?