Sick, teething, sleep regressions, ugggg!!!

How does a child learn anything their first year between getting teeth, getting sick, and most of the time being sleep deprived?? 

Once the little cherubs finally learn how to put themselves to sleep and sleep through the night for 2 whole glorious nights - bam! a sleep regression, and now we are up again 2 times each night (though we have luckily kicked the bottle habit in the middle of the night).  You just get over a sleep

regression that the websites swore would only last a week, but you suffered for 2 weeks, and bam! the little cherub comes down with a cold and can't breathe through their nose, so therefore can't sleep.

How does any kid ever learn anything in their first year of life?  It's just amazing to me that through all this they learn how to move, how to start making sense of the world, how to be social, how to do so many other things.....  Thank goodness mine wake up every morning with a smile on their faces no matter how bad the night has been or else I would likely wake up in tears each morning...but how could I with these adorable faces to greet me!

Think of this:

• The average child has 6 colds their first year.  From what I have read they can last up to 10 days in babies normally = 60 sick days in the first year
• The most common sleep regressions are at 6 weeks, 3-4 months, 6 months, 8-10 months, 12 months, 18 months and 2 years old lasting around 2-6 weeks.  Luckily, it sounds like from reading, most babies only have major trouble at 1 or 2 of these, however in this house we have had some kind of regression at each of these so far.  If you take each of these lasting for 2 weeks in the first year = 70 days of troubled sleep in the first year
• Teeth usually start arriving between 4-7 months, with the next arriving between 8-10 = hopefully only a few days of bad sleep for the first year
• In total this equals around 130ish sick or bad sleep days in the first year!  This is 1/3 of the year!!!

With all of these things its amazing that any baby can function and that all parents are completely wackadoo all the time!

I have no great advice to help except take things as they come, try not to read too much on the internet (except this blog of course) or you will go crazy, and keep your chin up!  There is one blog that I really appreciate and the advice has worked for us that I would recommend: http://www.troublesometots.com/

Good luck!  And I hope you can catch some naps!!!