21 March 2008

Having Teeth Sucks!

Three weeks, that’s right, three weeks of peaceful nights of unbroken sleep. We had just started to forget about all of the sleepless nights that we had prior to these wondrous weeks. As I sit here typing this with only a few hours sleep to my name from the previous night. All of those nights come flooding back.

Why are human beings not born with all their teeth? Now I'm sure that there is a scientific explanation for it but I don’t care. It’s a rubbish design floor. We come into this world, toothless and gummy and over the next 2 years we suffer as these pointy, bony things slowly force there way through our gums. I don’t remember this process from when I was a baby but I do remember when I was 14 or 15 when my wisdom teeth decided to come through and that was hell. Both Amy and Lilly went through this process (together of course) until they had all of their teeth apart from the last 4 big teeth at the back. Then everything stopped for about three weeks.

My girls waking up in the night ends in exactly the same way every single time. They both share a room but are in separate cots. One of them will wake up, lets say Lilly, and start to cry. We wait on the monitor to see if she will settle. This will go on for about 10 minutes with probably about 10 seconds or so of silence every now and then to give Emma and me a false sense of hope that she may have just dropped her dummy and now it is back in.

So at this point one of us needs to creep in there to see if a dummy has dropped on the floor. This is usually Emma’s job as I don’t creep to well and end up being too loud. Is the dummy in? Yes it is, damn. So now give her teddy and her cuddly and wander out. Amy will then start crying as well and she has noticed mummy and at that point we have lost. We will try to settle them down but usually they will stand up and want to get out.

They play off each other so if they are quiet, it takes one cry and they both start again. We can leave them for hours and they will not go back to sleep until we split them up. That means either me or Emma on the couch with Lilly on the floor with a duvet and the other in the bed with Amy, who hogs the entire bed until you are balancing on the edge with nowhere to go.

So please think of us as we navigate our way through the final, painful weeks of teething. As I have to drink as much caffeine as humanly possible at work staring at a PC screen trying not to nod off. As Emma who I have left at home with 2 very irritable children because they haven't had enough sleep and everything makes them fly off the handle.

There, its good to share!

2 comments:

Eva said...

Oh no! We've been working through the canines at our house at 18 months and I was hoping for along break before the 2 year molars. I'm sorry to hear that it's been so rough for you. Teething and sleep are not a good combo in our house, either.

Traci said...

you are cracking me up ... I have 8 1/2 month old twins who are die hard "plug" users (or dummy, as you call it). Your description of going to make sure they have it in the middle of the night ... freakin' hilarious! Oh, I rue the day of the paci-wean!