So This is What Comes from Cooperation?

If you’ve been reading my blog, you may have been here when our son Elijah was born in September.  You may have also been here when he was just 3 days old and my husband had to leave Portland, Oregon for his new job in Houston, Texas.  Those were some hard times.

When my husband came home on weekends, I would never let him get too involved with the basic care of the baby.  My husband could hold him, love him, play with him, but no soothing when he was cranky, no feeding, no putting to sleep.  Sounds very cruel, no?  Well, I was in survival mode, knowing that my husband was going to be leaving just 48 hours later, and I was going to be back on my own.  I *needed* to be in command of the baby’s schedule, because I wasn’t going to get any help during the week.

Once we were back together as a family in November, it got a little better, but my husband still travels 50% of the time for work.  Sometimes he’s gone for just a quick overnighter, but many times he’s gone for a week at a time.  Out of necessity I have kept most of the “do not assist” rules in terms of my husband helping with baby’s schedule.

But a different kind of necessity has arisen because of the fact that baby just does. not. sleep.  I have started to get FRIED from the months and months of sleep-deprivation, and just about nuts from all the rocking and rocking it requires to even get him to NAP some days!  My husband is the one in survival mode now – he must survive ME!

So about 4 weeks ago my husband just started volunteering to put the baby down for naps and bedtime.  I was powerless to resist.  More than that, for the past few weeks my husband has also started getting up with Eli in the middle of the night.  When *I* go in the room at midnight, Eli smells milk.  There’s no way I can just rock him back to sleep without a fight.  When my husband goes in to the room at midnight, he’s able to get Eli back to sleep in minutes.

Does anyone see where this is going?

My husband has recently been very busy, and now he’s out of town for the week.  And Eli wants his Daddy back!!  I honestly think Eli has come to prefer having my husband put him to bed.  What am I going to do?  Tonight it took just over an hour of some INTENSE screaming (on Eli’s part…I was just crying) to get the baby to sleep.  And I still hear him shifting around in his crib.

People ask me all the time how I can handle having my husband gone so often, and I usually offer some nonchalant answer of “Oh, we just plod right along.”  Maybe this is a lesson to the more prideful part of myself that I really *do* need his help.  Gosh darn it!

You might also enjoy these related posts from Tree, Root, and Twig:

1. Now THAT Was Good!
2. Here's Hoping (::Fingers Crossed::)
3. A Sleeper Hit

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