I forgot how stressful sleep can be the first few weeks/months of a baby’s life. Not the lack of sleep, I remember that! Just the uncertainty of it all. Will she sleep tonight? will she be up for 5 hours for no apparent reason? will she have gas that leaves her wailing and me trying to calm her & relieve the pain while not waking every one else in the home?
When should I go to bed? there’s so much I’d like to do tonight but I don’t know if I will get to sleep a decent amount or not… If I KNEW she would sleep tonight I’d stay up and get X, Y and Z done, but she could be up from 1am-5am again, in which case I should go to bed shortly after Little Man does… (7:30 bedtime any one?)
Sigh. Inevitably she stays up all night when I decide to stay up a little “late” (10pm is late these days). But when I go to bed early “just in case” she sleeps great and I end up not doing anything that I was hoping to do.
I forgot how exciting everything is until the baby figures out a schedule and or adapts to our schedule.
Fortunately I also remember that this is a relatively short lived period. It is stressful now, but I know it can only last a couple more months tops. I won’t be missing out on late night talks with my hubby for the rest of our marriage, only for a few more weeks! She will eventually figure out a normal sleeping pattern and I won’t have to go to bed worried about weather or not I will actually sleep. When I dealt with this with Little Man it was SO HARD. I was exhausted and it truly felt like this stage would last forever. “just a couple months” seemed like an eternity and I wondered if I would even survive that long. but I did! Our whole family survived, and we found a routine. I know we will do the same with this baby and it will all be okay. It may be stressful and tiring now, but this will end! “it won’t be like this for long” as the Darius Rucker song says. Thankfully, I know that to be true now so my stress level is much lower this time around, even though I’m getting LESS sleep than I did when I had Little Man. I’m so thankful for the peace & joy God has given me in this time. I don’t think I’d be making it without it!
Here’s to hoping my kids (and yours) sleep great tonight! ;)
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