Time to call in the experts

I've done what I'd tell any of my friends to do, were they in my situation. I went and talked to my favourite nurse at the ECHC and I have a referal to Tresillian's residential program. The nurse also talked to my therapist and they have decided it's urgent and that I need to get in ASAP which means I'll get in on a cancellation.

I actually know what the problem is and what needs to be done, but I'm incapable of doing it. Kiz needs to learn to get to sleep without my nipple in his mouth, ideally by himself in his cot, and he needs to eat more food so that he doesn't get quite as hungry during the night. I need to stop feeding him between the hours of say, 11pm and 5am and he needs to be able to get back to sleep and stay asleep without indefinite screaming. Unfortunately I can't do this on my own. It's a tangled circular problem and I can't go in to help the poor little guy get back to sleep in the night, exhausted, wanting to do anything to get back to bed, smelling of comfort and his favourite food and expect a few pats to settle him. I can't imagine waking up with a hungry rumble in my tummy and ignoring the smell of toasting bread and bacon frying and I don't believe I can expect the equivelent from a baby.

I could do it, I could wait it out and cope through this period of next-to-no sleep but I'm not sure my sanity, my relationship with my husband would remain unscathed - in fact, I'm not even sure that my children would remain safe from harm with their mother this bone tired. Until we work this out and I get some more sleep I'm going to maintain my holding pattern, trying to get as much sleep as I can, feeding Kiz as much food during the day as I can and getting him to sleep the only way I can (breastfeeding him to sleep). I'm also instituting some of the suggestions from Elizabeth Pantley's book - today's job might be to sketch out a going-to-bed book, and we already attempt an hour of going to bed ritual time, I'm working on developing his relationship with his teddy and helping him to love his cot. Tonight I'm hoping for better than last night - seven wake ups in 11 hours and, like Aprill said, you gotta know when it's time to hire the experts.