On my tombstone, it will read:

"She is using eternity to catch up on sleep.
It will probably take that long."

I am so sleep deprived that I am surprised I am still alive, actually. A person in my condition probably shouldn't be operating motor vehicles, using knives, or even hairdryers, for that matter.

Before we begin discussing Owen's sleep problems, I would like to preempt the discussion that usually follows by providing the following information:

Yes, I have read Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. I've ALSO read: The No-Cry Sleep solution, Solve your Child's Sleep Problems (ha!), The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems (double ha!), Babywise, aaaaaaaand The Seven O'Clock Bedtime. Yes! All of them! And I've swaddled. I've done pick up/put down. I've let him cry. I've picked him up right when he starts to whimper to see if I could get him back to sleep before he ever really wakes up. I've tried a "dream feed". I've tried putting water in the bottle. I've tried Ferber. I've tried modified Ferber. I've tried cosleeping. I've tried putting my tshirts in the crib. I've tried making it warmer. I've tried making it cooler. I've tried having him nap less during the day. I've tried having him nap MORE during the day. I'VE TRIED IT! WHATEVER IT IS, PEOPLE, I HAVE TRIED IT!

I feel like I have tried everything under the sun, twice, and the fact remains that the three of us are still waking up no less than four times a night, and on really bad nights, 5 or 6. And I know that the conventional wisdom at this point is that I just have to let him cry it out. But I am telling you - he will cry. and cry. and cry. but he will not get to out. And I can do the two minutes of crying. the five minutes of crying. I can even do the 18 minutes of crying before going in. But I can't do hours of crying. Perhaps, if I truly left the baby to cry for several hours several nights in a row, he would eventually put himself back to sleep. I tried a hard line approach exactly once, and after about three hours I decided that it was essentially child abuse, and I'll never do it again.

But we are not sleeping. It is really, really bad. And I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. And I am frustrated that almost every friend I have that has a kid loves to tell me how they were sleeping 10 hours at a time at 6 1/2 weeks. And all the helpful suggestions - look, I know people have nothing but the best intentions, but you do not go months at a time without sleeping without "how get baby sleep through night" being your #1 google search. And at this point, through the night is way more than I'm asking for. I'll take one - heck, I'll take TWO night wakings and call it success. He's capable of it - at around 4 - 5 months Owen was waking up once a night. This night waking stuff started around six months, and has been getting progressively worse since then. I'm entirely convinced that if present trends continue, we might as well resign ourselves to never sleeping again by a year.

It's because I drank all that coffee when I was pregnant, isn't it. dang.