Help, We Have A Two-Hour Charlie

For those of you who watched Lost, do you remember Desmond and the code he had to enter every hour or so, or something bad would happen? Watching him panic when the countdown was on. Well what if the computer was a baby and you could not stop the countdown every two hours?

That is our life right now.

Yep, our four-month old, Charlie, is on a very strict, I need to eat every two hours or I will freak out like Frank Ocean.

We thought it was a growth spurt, but it has been going on for weeks and we are now at a crossroads of what to do next.

The back story is, he was sleeping through the night just fine for over a week, so we decided it was time to upgrade to the crib. Since, I don’t think he has slept longer than four hours at a time in the new digs.

Then over the last week, he can’t seem to go more than two hours without wanting to eat.

So now we are trying to figure out:

  • Is he really hungry?
  • Does he not like the crib?
  • Is he not ready for the crib?
  • Does he just need more food ie. formula?
  • Are we going to survive a mental breakdown from lack of sleep?
I am not sleeping well, but I am not going to complain, because my wife is not sleeping at all. Not to be to mean, but she is starting to look like an extra in the Walking Dead.
It is very hard to be patient and nurturing when you are going bat-shit-crazy from being tired. I only wish there was more I could do to help.
It is like the baby has an actual timer somewhere that is reminding him that it is time to cry for food.
The hard part, unlike with our first boy is, we find it hard to just let him cry it out. It is unfair to our three-year old, who will get woken up and have his day derailed.
So we cave and go and get him and give the baby boy exactly what he wants.
We know we are going against the “experts” but at this point it feels like Survivor (which starts tonight) and an alliance is trying to get  us voted off the island. Back off Probst.
Anyways, we know it will pass, we know there is a turning point. We have done it before. Maybe we had it so easy the first time around that we just need to take a step back and start over. Baby steps.
Get Charlie back to sleeping for long stretches however we can. Then try the crib again.
It is hard. Not our lives our threatened hard, but pretty damn hard just from a sanity perspective.
So I will ask you this – Do you have any advice? Examples to share? Words of encouragement?
We would love to hear them, if not only to know we are not the only ones fighting the good fight when it comes to getting your baby to sleep.
Oh, have I mentioned the loudness? Wow, this kid is way louder than the first one. It is like he has Dr. Dre Beats pre-installed or something.
Anyways, this is more of a rant post than anything. Showers in the morning help. A big cup of tea helps. But when the day hits 4pm, it sure is hard to not crave sleep.
Okay, time to close this down and go see if the Mrs. needs a hand before I go to work.
That is the story of Two-Hour Charlie. We are the sequel comes soon and features at least a Seven-Hour Charlie.

 

4 Comments

  1. Gotta love babies…no two are the same. Having three of my own I can attest to that. Here is my .02:
    At four months old he is most likely still too young for a crib, and most definitely too young to be out of your bedroom; presuming of course you had him in a bassinet in your room to begin with. Cribs are vast open spaces to a 4 month old, colder too. The bassinet provides a sense of security, and believe it or not he can smell you when he wakes up and he knows he is OK. When he wakes up in a crib in his Nursery he can’t smell you and freaks out…ya gotta think Primitive…it’s instinctual and their senses are highly attuned. Remember he heard each of you constantly for 9 months, then a few more once born and now your putting him all alone… he doesn’t understand yet that he is actually safe, that is a learned response For reference we kept our boys in the bedroom with us for at least 6 months, about the time they finally started sleeping through the night. Once they can sleep through the night there is no need to keep them close to comfort them. Hope this helps, and hang in there it gets easier…

    • Thanks Christopher. While I agree with all that, we had great success with our fist son. He was in the crib sleeping through the night within 4 months. So that is where we are getting burned I guess. We expected the same.

      It will get figured out. As long as Charlie keeps that killer smile going, it is really hard to feel negative towards the situation.

      You said it best, no two kids are alike.

  2. I don’t miss those days. My second wasn’t horrible, my first was. He, too, was on a timer much like Charlie. As crazy as it sounds, and after trying everything else we could think of, following all the tips and tricks of the experts, I finally found the one thing that worked… kind of.
    I would literally walk our neighborhood streets, carrying him like a football, slightly bouncing him on my arm, at night. Like, 2, 3 o’clock in the morning “night.”
    I wish you the best. You’ll look back, and this will all just be a blink.

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