Sleep is messed up!

My poor baby does not know what is good for him or for his mother anymore!!

After last week's breakout of hives, we put him on Claritin to see if his eczema would clear up and it did! Along with this, he slept a whole lot better!! For the couple weeks before his major flare up, he was up in the middle of the night again. (I have been up soooo much more with this kid in the middle of the night than I did with any other kid! It's kind of a routine anymore. I hear Micah, I get up, shut the girls' door, shut my bedroom door, flip the hall light on, pick Micah up out of bed, and then deal with him. Usually I am up at least an hour with him and sometimes it's 3-4 hours. In the middle of the night.)

I am so glad this is my 4th kid and I have realized that sleep is not so precious anymore.

Anyway, I stopped giving Micah Claritin a couple of days ago and his eczema is back ALONG with him being up in the middle of the night.  Last night I laid him down around 9:30 pm and said to Matt, "I hope I don't get a 2 am wakeup call tonight." He was up at 2 am the night before.

Well, I had an 11:10 pm wakeup call. I was ok with going in this time because he didn't fully nurse like he should have at 9. I finished nursing him and I was back in bed by 11:30. I thought SURELY he would sleep all night.

Wrong!! 3:30 am. Micah was wide awake and crying. I went in there and he was sitting up in his bed wide awake. I picked him up and he just sat on my lap and looked around. I tried to rock him back to sleep, but this never works! I don't even know why I try anymore! I have learned the easiest thing to do is to put him on the floor and let him play a little bit. Usually within an hour, he is ready to go back to bed. I put him on the floor and grabbed some of his blankets and made myself a pillow to lay down as he played. He played for about an hour and then got fussy again, so I picked him up and nursed him. Usually this puts him back to sleep. (And no, this boy should not be hungry at 4:30 in the morning!)

After he was done, he was not asleep. GRRR!! Now it was about 5 am.  He was still wide awake, and I was tired of looking at the same four walls, so I took him downstairs. I checked my Facebook and email and he played in his walker. It was about 5:30 am at this time. I heard Matt get up upstairs and start to get ready for work.  Finally at about 5:45 am, I could tell he was starting to get tired, so I turned the TV on and sat down in the rocking chair. Finally, he snuggled up to his blankets and went back to sleep. 2 1/2 hours later!

It was now 6 am and I debated Should I just stay up or go back to bed? Going back to bed was the obvious answer! I laid him back down in his bed and went back to bed myself. I thought, I cannot survive on four hours of sleep.  I fell asleep shortly after going back to bed.

I heard Micah talking to himself around 8:45 am, and Megan went in and got him. It took me a little bit to wake up since I was so tired. Obviously I had let the kids sleep in, and they were just waking up themselves.

It is now 5 pm and he hasn't napped ALL DAY!! He is obviously tired, but will not give in.  I sure hope we are not up again tonight!!!