Let's talk about sleep

Sleep.  Ahh, I never realized or understood how precious this is.  Seems so simple, right?  You get tired at night?  You go to sleep.  You have a long, busy day?  Go home and get some sleep.  You don't sleep well the night before?  Go to sleep early the next night.  It used to be so easy and I could kick myself for those times where I complained about being "so tired."  I had no idea what I was talking about.

Just for your amusement, here is how sleep is panning out in our household right now.  I should mention, that after talking to several other friends with babies around the same age, it sounds like we are actually pretty lucky.  Asher Wade really only wakes up once during the night, if at all, yet Matt and I are up multiple times.  Welcome to parenthood!!

5:45 pm

Asher Wade is usually napping at this point after falling asleep out of pure exhaustion in the car on our way home from daycare.  This is only a couple hours before we prefer him to go down for the night (you know, so Matt and I can have an actual conversation and maybe eat some dinner that does not consist of cereal and canned biscuits).  Dilemna.  Do we wake him up so he has some play time before bed, or do we let him sleep, adhering to the "never wake a sleeping baby especially one that hasn't napped all day rule" and risk the possibility that he may not go back down till like midnight?  We usually decide on a compromise and wake him up around 6:15, a/k/a AW's witching hour.  Now he's pissed.  I mean, do you like being woken up from a good nap, especially to realize that you're stewing in a wet diaper, and during your fussy time nonetheless.  Yeah.  This isn't going well.  I usually take him for a walk, but he still fusses a little.  This goes on for about an hour, then we start the bedtime routine.  Bath, lotion, little massage, reflux meds, pj's, sleep sack...him screaming the whole time because he's so darn tired, and hungry, and just wanting his crib.

7:45

After nursing, rocking, singing and saying our prayers, Asher Wade is down for the night.  Matt and I begin the process of preparing for the next day (washing bottles, preparing bottles for the next day, packing AW's bag, packing my lunch, showering, laundry, feeding the dogs, and trying to eat a decent meal ourselves).  If we're feeling especially motivated, we may try and watch a show from our extremely clogged DVR.  Chances are though that we just crash in bed around 10:00 because we just don't know what the night is going to bring.  I always pump right before hitting the sack too.

 

10:30

Lights out for us.

 

1:00'ish

I wake up.  Actually, I usually shoot out of bed because I have this sudden panic that something is wrong.  This never happened until I became a mom.  Now anytime I wake up during the night, even just slightly, I automatically have this panicky feeling.  I immediately grab the video monitor and check to make sure I can see AW's chest rising and falling.  If I can't see it immediately, I wake Matt up and ask him if he can see.  He almost always assures me that yes he can.  Sometimes I believe him.  Sometimes I don't.  Depending on how confident I feel with his response, I may or may not drag myself upstairs, quietly sneak in to the nursery, and oh so carefully touch him, feeling for movement.  Once I'm convinced he's ok, I head back to bed.  Of course now I'm all wired and paranoid, so it takes a good 30 minutes to fall back alseep.

 

2:30'ish

I wake up again.  Check the monitor.  Is he breathing?  Ok, good.  Back to sleep.

 

4:00

I wake up to pump.  It's almost like I have an internal alarm clock now that I've been doing this for so long.  Sure it would probably make more sense for me to pump at 1 when I first woke up, but if you've ever breastfed, you understand that your body is like a well oiled machine and your milk comes in pretty much on an exact schedule.  1:00 would be too early, but after 4:30 would be too late.  Of course I know that I should cut out this pumping session.  All my mommy friends get on to me about this, saying how I need to be giving my body the rest.  Here's where my confession comes in.  Hello my name is Leanne and I am a breast milk hoarder.  It's an addiction really.  Yes my body desperately needs sleep, but I just can't stop adding to my stash of breast milk.  You should see our freezer.  My goal is to breast feed for a year and then let him coast on the frozen milk for another couple months, but for all I know he could wean himself much sooner than that.  So needless to say, I may be donating a whole lotta breast milk.

 

4:30'ish

Usually right when I finish pumping, Asher Wade starts fussing. I mean, can he smell the milk or something?? We watch him on the monitor to see what's going on. For the most part, he'll fuss for 5 minutes or so and then usually put himself back to sleep. He's really a pretty good sleeper and I think it's impressive for his age that he can put himself back to sleep. Some nights, particularly as of late, we have to feed or soothe him a little to get him back to sleep.  Matt usually has to be the one to go up there because as soon as he smells sees me, he wants to nurse, and we try not to automatically resort to food.  If Matt is unsuccessful, I give in and nurse him back to sleep.  Regardless, we're up for at least 30-45 minutes. It's hard falling back asleep.

5:30'ish

AW usually wakes up again and makes some sort of noises that wake us up.  I swear I know a few minutes ahead of when he will wake up as I'm usually already staring at the monitor.  Sometimes I'm still awake from the last go around.  This is when we get a little more rigid.  We try not to go see about him and just let him fuss/talk to himself for awhile until he falls back asleep.  Matt has to take the monitor away from me though because I'll just stare at him until he's sound asleep again.  So Matt moves the monitor to his side of the bed, out of my view, and keeps an eye on him to make sure he doesn't get too upset.  I roll over and fall back asleep.

 

5:35-6:30

This is the best sleep I get.  For whatever reason I sleep really soundly during this hour.

 

6:30

Alarm goes off.  Are you kidding me?!