Sleep, Interrupted

I'm quite sure the title has been done before, but at the moment, I'm too tired to care or to think of a better one.

T (20 months) gets the worst-sleeper award in this house. If you have been reading for a while, you might remember how good of a sleeper T was originally. Seriously. Amazing. It was important because K (2.9) wasn't.

The chance of a full night of sleep decreases given the number of children one has. With three children, I think we're down to about a 10% chance each night. I can't complain too much because I know there are kids who sleep less than my kids.

It's so hard when you're tired. I can't think well enough to do some of the work I need to do. Last night, I needed to read some materials, but I didn't bother because I was so tired that reading wouldn't have been a good use of my time. I went to bed early for me (11:15 pm), and I'm so glad I did. At 3:25 I woke up to T screaming. MWH had already been up once with N (5) because her ear hurt. He gave her tylenol and she went back to sleep. I let T scream for a long time thinking she'd go back to sleep. She didn't. MWH went down to comfort her at 4 am. She was comforted while he held her, but then started screaming again.

At 4:17 I went down, soothed her and put her back in bed. I didn't even make it out of her room before she started screaming again. I brought her to bed with me. After 30 minutes of being kicked and poked, I decided she needed to go back to her crib. She wouldn't. At 5 am, I brought her back to bed with us. MWH got out the benadryl. Around 5:30 am we all went back to sleep. K woke me up at 8. I didn't get out of bed and tried my best to ignore her requests for a yogurt drink and television.

Since my parents are visiting, the TV is not in our bedroom. We moved it out to the living room for them. This means that K's usual means of entertainment while we wake up is gone. She was very upset. At 9, she started to get upset so I got up, got her a yogurt drink and turned on the TV downstairs for her ('cause she wouldn't sit with my parents and watch with them). I didn't want to leave her alone, but I was still exhausted. It was Dragon Tales. Fortunately, MWH got up right after I came back to our room, he took over with K and I went back to bed until 10.

I'm still not moving very fast, but I'm hoping that ~3.75 hours of sleep, then awake for 2 hours, then asleep for 2, awake for 1, and asleep for 45 more minutes is enough.

T is pretty freaked out by my parents' visit. If other people are in the house, she cries if I'm not holding her because she doesn't want them to take her from me or for me to leave. She is in major separation anxiety phase. I am pretty sure the sleep disruption was because she was upset, not for any other reason.

Tonight, I will set up the portable crib in our room. Hopefully she'll fall asleep in her room, come snuggle when she wakes up in the middle of the night for a few minutes and then go to sleep without screaming in the portable crib. I hope I am not being delusional about this idea. MWH will have a good sense of what might happen too and hopefully between the two of us we can come up with a plan that works. I don't want to have to resort to benadryl again.