Illness and sleep

Ben has been poorly for about a week now and I am thoroughly exhausted. With the exception of the post-birth fiasco we had with the hospital he has never been ill before. It's been quite unnerving actually.

It started last Tuesday. He was fine - and very chirpy in fact - before bed but he woke me up squirming and thrashing at about 1.30am. He had a raging temperature and after an hour of trying to get him to accept milk and cuddles as a means of getting back to sleep I had to get up with him. We spent the night pacing up and down the living room. I stuck a Friends dvd on and eventually we both dozed lightly on the sofa under a cellular blanket.
Wednesday and Thursday were much the same and I took both days off work. He wouldn't let me put him down and refused all food and liquid with the exception of Mummy milk (again, totally unheard of. He's normally a ravenous little monster when it comes to food). I went back to work on Friday as he seemed ok but he relapsed into fever again on Friday night and I spent another night pacing and sofa dozing.

His temperature has been back to normal since Sunday but he's got a hoarse little voice and a rotten throaty cough if that makes sense. He doesn't like to lie flat as often it leads to a little choking episode. My poor little sausage.

However I'm feeling a little under the weather myself now having had almost a week of very limited sleep and the cough/lost voice element that Benjamin has kindly passed on. Unfortunately last night was another where he didn't sleep until 3.30am. I was as patient as could be until about 2am when i snapped and hissed 'Stop it! For the love of God stop it!'. Which just made him cry of course.
I feel bad for taking my frustration out on him. He'd spent ages latching on and off and squirming and kicking me and headbutting me and I was tired and had to get up for work at 7am. Sometimes you just don't have the energy to shush and pat and offer constant milk and cuddles. Sometimes patience and understanding is beyond you. Sometimes you just want the easy way out.

We ended up downstairs again until he fell asleep. I put him into his own bed and we snuggled for a while until I retired back to my own. He must have been exhausted as he slept there without a murmur until just after 8.30am this morning. He didn't even wake with the riot that was J and J barging in there when they woke up and playing in his wardrobe!

He's on the mend anyway and hopefully we'll be back to getting a little more sleep soon. Poor J and J have been somewhat deprived of Mummy attention while I've been constantly nursing the little one so I need to make ammends there as well.

But right now I'm tired and I just want to sleep.