Sleep.

It's been a looonnngg time since I feel like I have consistently gotten a good night's sleep.  First, there was the pregnancy insomnia and then there were those lovely newborn nights when we were waking up every couple hours.  For a couple weeks, we thought Levi had gotten with the program and begun to sleep through the night; he even made it almost 10 hours for a few nights in a row...and it was heavenly.

And then disaster struck.  About 2 weeks ago, Levi came down with a little stomach bug. He wasn't necessarily going but so frequently, but when he did it was a MAJOR blow out and crazy stinky.  He wasn't his normal happy self and he seemed to have little to no appetite.  As I'm sure any parent that has dealt with a sick child can tell you, it is such a helpless, sad, and frustrating process.  And to make it just a little (or maybe a lot) worse, each night Levi seemed to wake up at about 3/4 AM with a total blow out...like have to change his pajamas, the sheets, wash him down... blow out!  So needless to say, sleeping through the night went right out the window.  I figured it was only temporary.

Fast forward to this week.  Levi is clearly feeling better.  He is smiling, "talking," and playing again like normal...YAY!  His appetite has not only returned, but has come back with a vengeance.  He can't get enough!   He's eating 3 "solid" meals a day and taking about 5 8 oz. bottles....that's a whole lot for a 4-month old if you're not in this game!  Each night when I put him to bed, I do so with full confidence that the child can't possibly need any more food in his little body and that he will undoubtedly sleep through the night.  But guess what?  Every 4 hours or so, Levi is up and crying.

And every night, Josh and I have the same discussion:

Josh: Do you think he's hungry?

Me: I don't know.  How could he possibly be hungry?  He has eaten a shit ton today!

Josh: Well, he's crying.

Me: I know...maybe he needs to just cry it out.

Josh: No response...clearly not excited at this prospect.

A minute or so later, Me: But then again he may be hungry.  I don't know if he's hungry.  If he's hungry, I should feed him.  But I don't want him just getting into the cycle of eating just to eat.

About a minute later, I'm out of bed and feeding Levi who, in fairness, devours a 6 oz. bottle.  I don't know if his little body is just making up for what it lost out on when he was sick.  Or if he is growing through an infamous growth spurt.  Or if he's just deleted from his little memory how to soothe himself back to sleep.  This is all new territory for me.  Colton slept through the night at about 2 months and never looked back.  We didn't have to worry about this stuff.  So, other parents out there...help me out PLEASE!  How would you deal with this? I certainly don't want to neglect my child, but at the same time, I want him to learn how to soothe himself back to sleep and not cry just to have us come in.  Seriously y'all any insight you can offer I'd love to hear it!

But on a happier sleep note, I snapped this photo of Levi the other day while he was dozing on the couch (right before we put him to bed for the night):

As soon as I saw it, I knew it reminded me of a picture of Colton I had taken. Josh and I looked back at his blog and found this one from August 4, 2010:

                                                       

If you don't want to do the math, that makes Colton and Levi roughly the exact same age in those pictures.  I can't get over how much alike they look!  While my boys may not be exact replicas, there is no doubt they are related!