the lesser of two evils

This is the face of a well-rested child up to no good:) Trouble with a capital 'T'.

When the mini papercut was very little she slept like a champ and ate like a beast. She remained this way until the kids started summer vacation. With the older kids home all day, she gave up on her normal nap times, opting to stay awake in fear of missing out on some of the fun. She also stopped sleeping through the night, waking at least 3 or 4 times to breastfeed...not fun!

Well, it's been about 3 weeks since the kids started back at school, and I'm happy to say that the mini papercut has returned to her old sleeping habits! WOO HOO!!! Over the last month or so, I've also cut off her night time feedings, as she was only really doing it to soothe herself back to sleep and she'll be 1 soon. She has not protested and it went surprisingly well, considering how much this kid likes to eat:) But I made the mistake of substituting her breastfeeding with letting her lay on my chest to fall back asleep at night, something I swore I would never do again! I learned my lesson with my eldest child, who slept with us until she was about 2, and was a pain to get out of our bed.

The first few nights of adopting this new routine went smoothly, with her falling asleep on my chest and me placing her gently back in her crib, where she'd sleep contently until about 5 or 6 am and wake up to either breastfeed of be soothed back to sleep for another couple of hours.

This no longer is the case.

For the last week or two, the mini has had the luxury of sleeping in my bed the whole night. Yup, exactly what I didn't want to happen. But I'm not too worried about that, that's not the problem. The problem is that I've been sick for a week, and exhausted, which means my little one has been sleeping with/on me for the same amount of time and now my back is a MESS!!! I am in so much pain that I can't even bend over to put her back in the crib. I'm having pain in my lower back when I walk, when I sit, heck, even when I lay down. NOT FUN!!! To say I'm not a happy camper is an understatement, but what can you do?

On the plus side, the mini papercut is sleeping right through the night now. I'll take what I can get.