To my dear friends who tell me, at 11:30 in the morning, that you just woke up, I don't even know what to say to you. Sure, it's no surprise that with parenthood comes the long and sordid fantasies of sleeping past 7 am, and while at some point it was a luxury to spend all day in my pajamas, it just isn't the same when it's out of necessity now rather than a luxury.
Truthfully, I've become quite used to the lack of sleep, or at least shorter sleep patterns. My body naturally wakes me up still every 2-3 hours and if I get more than 6 hours of sleep in a night I am groggy the next day. My issue right now is Julian's sleep. A couple of weeks before he turned one, his naps went to crap. He used to be such a consistent 2-nap-a-day baby, giving me enough time in the mornings to get in a workout and do some laundry, and some time in the afternoon to start dinner and possibly work on my blog. (Side note: for those of you moms who also maintain a blog, how the hell do you do it so frequently?! I feel like I never have time to write anymore and I see you guys update your blogs all the time. When do you do it?!) Ever since that fateful week in May, his naps are erratic at best. Some days I get one, some days I get two, and when they are going to happen no one knows. I know he has been dealing with getting his molars out and has been starting to walk, but doesn't there come a point where his body just NEEDS SLEEP? Right now we get about 9 hours of sleep a night, if that. Period.
Yes, I nurse him down for his naps. Yes, I am trying to stop doing this. At night, Thad sways/rocks him to sleep and yes, this too is something I'd like to change. He's getting to a point where sleep is a battle and I positively dread anything to do with it anymore. Naps? We get in the car. I thought I knew Fairfax very well in my 17 years of living here but I've learned even more about it in the past month. Transfers from the car to the crib? Just forget about it. I might as well just take him out of the car and turn on some dance music because that's about how awake he is once my hand touches the seatbelt.
I have no clue what to do. I had no idea that sleep could be SO consuming. When to sleep, where to sleep, what to wear to sleep, eating before/after sleep....good grief. It's a wonder that we do anything else during the day other than obsess about sleep.
It's 8:10 and he has been crying. It's hard. We both want to help and stay with him until he falls asleep but he doesn't seem to stay asleep once we leave the room.
I'm so sorry that everything I've been posting lately hasn't been very happy, but I guess sometimes it's not always sunshine and daisies. I mean, we *did* have a fantastic weekend celebrating the 4th, other than the sleep issue. We went to the new Chick-Fil-A in Fairfax for it's grand opening, we went to a birthday party of one of Julian's baby pals, we went to the neighborhood pool for the bigh independence day bash. Grandma is back from New Zealand, too, so we've been spending a lot of time with her this weekend as well as finally putting more steps together to walk across the room! It's been a very exciting few weeks but still, I just have to know his sleep will get better.
"This too shall pass." Right?
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