Sleep is something I never gave much thought about. I love it. If there was ever the opportunity, which was rare, to take a nap, I would. M would often laugh at me if I fell asleep on a Sunday afternoon for an hour or more, but I loved it. I would go to bed at 8:30pm happy as a clam. Yes part of this was because I would go to work at the insane times of anywhere between 5:30-630am... but I didn't mind because I would then be able to leave early. But even if I didn't have to get up that early, I would still go to bed early, just because.
Then when I became pregnant, it was an over flow of people (mostly people who barely know me) would love to say, "Sleep now because you wont later!" or "Try to sleep as much as you can now to prepare!!" Seriously? WTF does that mean? It's not like I have this little piggy bank of sleep hours that I can reach into when I am sleep deprived with a newborn and it will automatically make me feel like I have had 8 hours of sleep when in reality I have had 2. It drove me crazy to hear it. Now looking back, I wish someone would have said to me... Enjoy the uninterrupted sleep, enjoy laying with M in bed on a rainy afternoon, enjoy random weekend naps, and enjoy waking up and going to bed when you want to because that is what I wished I had valued a little bit more. Not to say I wont ever get to do those things ever again... it may be 6 months, or 30 years from now, but they will return lol. But at the end of the day, no one can prepare you for what life, or sleep for that matter will be like once your newborn arrives.
Q came in with a bang I must say. She has set of lungs like her mother with a bizzare calmness of her father. When we first brought her home, we had had maybe 4-6 hours of sleep total from our hospital stay, yet we were running on adrenaline. We were new parents, we were excited, scared, and had absolutely no idea what the hell we were doing. The 2 weeks at home are just a blur, we were in complete survival mode. I loved when people told me to sleep when she sleeps. Which is total bullshit. Sometimes I would be too tired to sleep, imagine that? Or I was so fearful something would happen to her. I would constantly check to see if she was still breathing. I was trying to figure out breast feeding... and there was so much on my mind, sleeping was actually harder than I expected for how utterly exhausted I was, and still am here at 5 1/2 weeks.
I will say though, it does get better. Q is sleeping at night from anywhere from 4-6 hours at a time which is pure bliss. Im not even upset at our 2 or 3am wake up call. In the first few weeks, I would cry, and cry, and cry some more because I was just so tired. We weren't bottle feeding, M was back at work, and the night shift was up to me, which was and still is my choice. Weekends are a different story for M, but during the week, I respect him having to work 10 hour days, with a 50minute commute and since I am at home, I know I can take a mid morning snooze, or an afternoon nap, Q allowing of course : ) So that is what works for us, not saying it's the perfect situation but it is what works for us right now. However, when I go back to work, things will change I'm sure lol
Now that I have been selfish enough to rant about my own sleep deprivation, let me rant about Q for a hot minute. In the first few weeks first time parents have no clue what the hell is going on, and we were no exception. Hell, I am not sure we will ever know or think we know what we are doing with Q. I think we all feel like there will be this magical sense of knowing what to do, but once we got Q home, we had no idea, including the fact that she needed sleep. Embarassing as it is to admit it we screwed up a lot when it came to sleeping and what she needed, and now as we are still slowly but surely figuring her out, we are happier, she is happier, and we are all thankful for that 9-2am stretch we have been getting for the past 6 nights.
We "assumed" that when she was up and crying it was automatically gas or colic, yet interesting enough no one asked us if we thought she was tired. I had Q up for 5 hours straight some days... what was I thinking??? I was obsessed with the clock thinking oh well if I keep her up a little longer she may sleep longer. No, that was wrong in our case with our Q. We have slowly figured out she can do about 2 hours max which includes about 45 minutes of nursing and then an hour or so of play time and then shes ready to go back down. And when she is ready to go back down, she needs to sleep. I also never realized that if she was awakened 20 minutes later after being layed down, the process starts all over for her. That 20minutes restarts her schedule, and she definitely did not get the sleep she needed, therefore, if this happens repeatedly throughout the day, I am screwed come evening time because I know she will be hell on wheels. Yet if I can help her get a good nap (full belly, good play time with stimulation, clean diaper - all before she slows down) we are going to have a great day, most of the time.
So for now, Im going to enjoy the last 5 weeks I have home with her sleep or no sleep. Hopefully we will continue to get good sleep but ya never know. However, I am very hopeful we can still get our 5 hours : ) because it's making all three of us a lot happier in this house!
