When you have a newborn or a nursing baby, you generally fall into a sleep pattern. While it can still be painful to wake up multiple times a night, especially when baby decides to tweak the schedule, your body learns to cope. Once the kids move out of that stage and you get a reprieve from waking up periodically throughout the night, a few sleepless nights are killers.
Ezra seems to be on a teething marathon this week and is having the most bizarre nights. He’ll go to bed fine, but wake up screaming and won’t take his pacifier like he used to. He seems to think it’s time to get out of bed and play no matter what time of night he wakes up. Sorry, kid, but I don’t want to get up and play at 1 am. It never fails, either, that the moment I enter dreamland. he decides to start screaming. And he is one stubborn little guy who can work himself into an inconsolable tizzy! With Ella, you could rock, cuddle, hold, sing, but he is often resistant. Oh, man. It tests my patience, but I can’t sleep through constant crying and it breaks my heart to hear him.
Add Ella’s new desire to come to our bed in the middle of the night and add what feels like a 100 degrees to the room on a hot summer night and I am totally beat. These kids have been spoiling me with their nice, consistent sleep schedule and, boy, do I want them to go back!
I could nap, but truly, there is so much to be done! I have an embarrassing mountain of laundry to do, articles to write, interviews to do, life to be lived. Plus, I want to read all of the blogs that I love and I am usually putting off housework to do this. They are both napping now, so I am going to watch mindless television, fold clothes, and space out.
Who knows? Maybe it will be like Saturday night and I’ll find myself cocooned in the laundry fast asleep instead of folding it. I went to bed reading and didn’t want to put my Dexter book down on Saturday. I don’t remember falling asleep, but when I woke up awhile later, it was with my face literally in my book.
We’re having some erratic sleep issues in my house as well and it has taken a toll on my reading. I think the luxury of reading all the time is one of the things I miss most about my pre-baby life.
I’m all about the mindless tv watching and spacing out. And when I do fold laundry, I generally work that into the mindless tv watching. It seems to work out rather well.
Good luck getting the sleep! I love sleep… I do not look forward to having another baby (assuming we have another one) and experiencing the lack of sleep a newborn entails… it frightens me just thinking about it.
It is misery when you’re not used to it! I hope Ezra’s teething is over soon and Ella decides her bed is just as great as mom and dads! =)
Hopefully things return to normal soon for you. I love sleep and can’t seem to function without a full 7-8 hours. I am a huge fan of folding laundary while watching tv. In fact, I am about to do just that.