Sleepless Nights

Author: Veronica

  • PCOS and weaning a toddler

    A little while ago I went through the process of night weaning Evelyn, teaching her how to fall asleep with a bottle and without me. It was going well – swimmingly in fact, until Evelyn realised I am at my weakest at 4am.

    Beating her little fists on the side of the cot, she refused to lay back down and sleep at 4am, demanding a breastfeed and spitting angrily if I tried to give her a bottle.

    We added back in a 4am breastfeed, at which point I would usually bring Eve back to bed with me, because it was easy.

    But, she’s like most toddlers. You give an inch, they take a mile. And then they take the mile and run even further with it, until no one has any miles left and they’re all tangled up and unable to walk because of the mile wrapped around their legs.

    Needless to say, it’s not working anymore.

    Last night Eve woke up at midnight, and screaming, demanded to be taken to my bed for a breastfeed. I refused. She screamed, fussed, wailed, complained, slept, screamed, repeat. At 2am I breastfed her and put her back in her cot. At 3am she was screaming again.

    I gave up and brought her back in to bed with me.

    The thing is though, it isn’t working for me anymore. She’s not interested in breastfeeding during the day at all anymore, and I am too tired to keep nursing overnight.

    I think this means we’re weaning entirely.

    I’m ready for it. I’m ready to wear proper bras that fit me decently, I’m ready.

    Mostly I’m ready to have some sort of hormonal cycle back. And I know, I’ll be bitching about it before the month is out, but you see, I’ve got PCOS and I can FEEL that it’s flared up. I should have had a period back 6-8 months ago. If I concentrate, I can feel my stupid ovaries doing stupid things in my stupid reproductive system.

    Fertility is a tricky thing, and I’m glad to not be having to think about it anymore. For those wondering, my husband had a vasectomy when Eve was four months old and it has been the best decision we made.

    I’m glad to be done with babies. I’m glad to almost be done with breastfeeding.

    I want my body back to myself. Is that too much to ask?

  • Evelyn the Tyrant

    Evelyn is 17.5 months old now and OH, don’t we know about it. She has WANTS and NEEDS and LOUD OPINIONS that frequently see her throwing herself to the floor to screech about the unfairness of it all.

    Last night, Amy curled up on my lap for a snuggle while I read a book. Evelyn noticed, and looking determined, she climbed on top of her sister. Using feet and elbows, she wedged herself between us, screeching at Amy the whole time.

    WOE to anyone who dares touch me. Evelyn will be there, pushing them away.

    It’s both cute, and frustrating. Usually we just pull her into the middle of whatever cuddle we’re having until she fights free.

    This morning Isaac was playing Minecraft on the computer. Evelyn climbed up onto the chair with him, and carefully, using her feet, began pushing him off the chair. Isaac, being a decent big brother, went and got a second chair for himself. Eve crawled onto that one as well and kicked him off.

    At which point I intervened and took her away, but OPINIONS and NEEDS and WANTS.

    She’s full on, exhausting. If I sit down at my computer, she pouts. If I keep working, she turns the computer off. I moved to a new desk to make the computer tower higher, out of reach. She gets a step stool. If I switch to the laptop, she shouts and pushes the lid closed.

    Needless to say, I haven’t been on the computer much at all.

    Eve’s eating has picked up a little bit. I’m hesitant to hope too much, as her eating has always been peaks and troughs, but for now she’s eating. I mostly weaned her too. She’s having a breastfeed at 4am, but isn’t interested during the day. And HALLELUJAH she’s taking a bottle of pediasure before sleep now.

    We’re working on finding new things that she’ll happily eat. She likes well seasoned food, preferring curry to plainer foods, which is nice. It’s nice to have one child who likes curry – the older two mostly just eat the rice.

    But she isn’t talking yet.

    I hesitate to say she isn’t talking “at all”, because when pressured, she will say Mumum, Da-da and something that sounds close to “MeeMee” which I assume is Amy. But she’s mostly a silent child, using various inflections of screech to communicate. She wasn’t a babbly baby, and she still isn’t now. It’s strange for me, even at the peak of Isaac’s ASD regression, he still had around 10 words.

    Our speech pathologist is a bit concerned, because it’s clear Eve understands well.

    But it’s another wait and see thing. In the meantime, I think I’d best start learning some simple sign language to teach her. It might curb the angry frustration we’re seeing a lot of.

    And that’s it from me. School holidays have left me with hardly any free time. Three children mean it’s rare that someone isn’t speaking to me, climbing on me, or needing me immediately for something. School is back in another three weeks. Isaac turns five on Saturday.

    Life is good. Busy, chaotic, exhausting – but good.

  • Why is fresh food so expensive?

    If I tally up my budget, food is our biggest expense. And I’m starting to get despondant about the fact I can buy a weeks worth of processed crap for less than the price of three days of fruit and veg.

    It’s ridiculous.

    And expensive.

    Is it the same where you live? Or is fresh produce cheap?

    Read the entire article at Money Circle.

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  • Why I quit sugar (aka: I’m probably insane)

    FebFast_Ribbon_RGBThis article is sponsored, but I’m also going to talk about my health, quitting sugar (aka: losing my sanity) and why I agreed to do it and see how I feel.

    I’d like if you kept reading, because I’m interested in your thoughts too.

    —

    I’d been thinking about quitting sugar for a while, in an abstract “maybe I’ll feel better” kind of way. My health is tenuous at best, and I wondered how my chocolate consumption was impacting on my general feeling of wellness.

    Plus, I have rotten skin and I was interested to see if cutting out sugar would help. This tied in well with my “god I need to drink more water” epiphany in December, which saw me doubling my fluid intake and feeling much better for it.

    Now, I haven’t been over the top about it all. I’m still eating fruit, and I’ve been adding honey to smoothies. When the sugar cravings got really bad I was also eating honey on bread, much to the passive aggressive disgust of one of my twitter followers. Apparently I can’t complain about quitting sugar because I’m DOIN IT WRONG or something.

    Today is day ten of no processed sugar, and I honestly can’t tell you if I feel any better or not. I think I do. Maybe? Detoxing is such a slow process I’m not sure I’d notice the improvements.

    I’ve definitely been making better choices with my food, making salads, or sandwiches, or cheese on crackers instead of reaching for another chocolate biscuit. If you tell me cheese isn’t healthy, I will cut you.

    I’d like to say that quitting sugar has eased my Ehlers Danlos related nausea but I’m also weaning Evelyn, so I think my periods are returning, and someone pass me a goddamned bucket and a cold compress PLEASE.

    It’s been an interesting experience so far. I’m not as ravenously hungry as I was on days one through five, and it’s interesting to me to notice how often I was snacking out of boredom, or oral fixation (who said my quirky kids fell far from the metaphorical quirky tree?), rather than pure hunger.

    As for my skin, well it’s been kind of terrible actually. BUT, I noticed with my skin it gets really bad whenever I make a big dietary change, before improving again. Doubling my water intake made me breakout badly, before my skin improved to look clearer than it had in a long time (gestating girl babies messes with my skin horribly – I had lovely skin during my pregnancy with Isaac).

    I was also hoping to lose weight quitting sugar, but I think ravenous hunger and ‘oh god I’ve got no energy why am I doing this’ lethargy have been working against me, and ten days is not enough time to lose weight anyway. So that’s still something that might happen.

    All in all, I’m really glad I was sponsored to begin this kick. It definitely pushed me over the edge and made me commit, which I’m not sure I would have been able to do without the incentive. At least not without lots of angst and should I shouldn’t I oh help crap.

    I’m going to keep it up, definitely for the entirety of January, and then I’ll be joining in properly with Febfast (my lovely sponsors) to stay off sugar for February, and then we’ll reassess and see how I feel. I started early, so that I could write about it for you.

    Now for the sponsored part.

    FebFast is the original charity movement which challenges Australians to take a 28 day break from alcohol and raise funds for youth addiction. New for 2014, FebFasters will have the choice to take a break from alcohol, sugar, caffeine or digital overload.

    For six years, FebFast has been just the tonic to kick-start a healthier year, raising $5.5 million and inspiring nearly 1,000,000 drink-free days in the process. Resisting your cravings is also a tiny insight into the challenges young people face with serious addiction issues each day. It’s time you joined the ultimate pause for the better.

    ANYTHING that raises money to help with youth addiction is something I am willing to get behind.

    If you’re interested, check out their About page.

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    JOIN MY TEAM

    Currently I’m all lonely in my quitting sugar team, and I’d love if you joined the Sleepless Nights AHOY team. You can also give up digital devices (SACRILEGE), alcohol, or caffeine.

    Or you can support us by going here and donating. Your money is used to help young people suffering from addiction.

    My advice

    My advice if you’re quitting sugar is to start cutting down now. I spent December cutting out sugar in my tea – going down 1/2 teaspoon at a time, and avoiding chocolate biscuits. Of course, then Christmas came and I ate WAY too much pavlova, effectively setting myself back the entire month, but you know. BABY STEPS.

    I assume it’s the same for anything you’re quitting. Cutting down to begin with is easier than going cold turkey.

    I’m interested to see if I’ve lost weight by the end of February, how I’m feeling, and whether I’ll immediately fall back into my old habits.

  • Resolving to spend less and be more awesome.

    “I’ve been seeing the 52 week savings plan show up everywhere on my Facebook dashboard, with the promoters imploring people to save. And it’s not a bad idea – showing how putting away a little extra each month can mount up faster than you’d think.

    I didn’t put it on my list of New Year Resolutions however, because I am at best disorganised, and at worst, positively scatty. I would remember to save really well for the first month, and then, pffft everything falls apart. As a saving strategy, I work best with a direct deposit out of my account every week. Then I just pretend that money doesn’t exist. It’s easy. I don’t have to think about it.”

    Read the rest at Money Circle.

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