Postpartum Hair Loss, a Night Terror, and a Birthday.

 It's true.  I'm losing my hair.  It started about three weeks ago.  I knew it was going to happen, but I wasn't ready for it.  It's all over the house.  It fills the vacuum cleaner.  And it's disgusting.  This is how much hair I lose in ONE shower. 

How do I have any hair left on my head, you ask?  I don't know.  I have been asking the same thing.  I know the other question you are asking is why I am blogging about it.  Well..It's kind of a long story.  I've been working to get Rudy into a consistent bedtime routine so that I can start laying him down awake, like I talked about in my last post.  (Thanks for all of the advice, ladies, I appreciate it!)  So last night at about 7:20 I gave Rudy a bath.  I could tell he was already getting tired, but I thought I could feed him afterwards and then read his book, swaddle him, and put him down.. awake.  But it didn't get nearly that far.  As soon as I started feeding him he fell asleep.  I tried to prop him up to burp him to wake him up and he still didn't wake up.  He was zonked.  I wasn't going to fight him to wake him up when the end goal was sleep anyways, so I swaddled him.  Usually he wakes up when I swaddle him, if he has already fallen asleep.   But last night he didn't make a peep.  He went down easier than he ever has. I stayed up to finish some laundry, watch T.V., and check Facebook do some online work. About an hour after he fell asleep he let out one of the loudest cries I have ever heard.  From a dead sleep.  I took off down the hallway thinking that he must be hurt or something.  I picked him up and he was still wailing, eyes closed.  Usually he is very easily comforted by me and stops crying when I pick him up.  Last night he couldn't be comforted at all.  I quickly unswaddled him and he started kicking his feet like crazy.  (Here is where the hair loss comes in.)  I read somewhere that when babies are crying like crazy to make sure that you check all of their appendages for hair tourniquets.  Their moms' hair can get wrapped tightly around one of them and cut off circulation.  So, being the hypochondriac I am, I immediately check all of his fingers, toes, and well... his little weenie to make sure there isn't any hair wrapped around them.  (I had to add this part in because I told Josh that is what I did and he laughed at me and thought it was sort of ridiculous.) 

He didn't have a hair tourniquet, but he was still screaming bloody murder and it seemed like he was still asleep.  I tapped on his cheeks and tried to tell him to wake up.  I tried prying his eyelids open, but he wouldn't wake up.  After about five minutes he finally woke up.  He was really fussy.  And really hard to get back to sleep.  Needless to say, I failed at ALL attempts of sleep training last night.  After I finally got him back down I started wondering what could have caused him to do that.  After doing a little online research I came to the conclusion that I think he had a night terror.  From what I read they don't usually start before nine months of age, but CAN start early.  They usually happen within one to two hours of falling asleep.  They happen during the fourth stage of sleep, the deepest sleep.  They happen more often when a child goes down to bed very easily than when you have to fight them to go to sleep.  The child isn't awake and can be very hard to awaken. 

I guess I don't know for sure if it was a night terror, but that's what I think it was.  I hope that it doesn't happen again though! It was a little bit disturbing. 

On another note.  Today is Jessie's Birthday!  Happy Birthday Weena!  We have been BFF's since the first grade (that's more than 20 years) and have had so many fun times.  I hope your day is special today and that Brian takes you on a fun date!  Love you!