It's Monday, the day after the shift to Daylight Saving Time, and I am a sleepy girl. Why, because I lost one hour of sleep on Saturday night? Of course not, that's ridiculous! (And I like DST, for the record.) All that did was put my bedtime at 2:30 instead of 1:30 that particular morning. And why haven't I been sleeping? Because my night owl husband has corrupted me, that's why.
I'm a good sleeper. I am the kind of sleeper who lays her head on the pillow, closes her eyes, and is instantly asleep. Over my ten years of parenting the spawn of Mr. Insomnia, I have had my sleep patterns disrupted and shortened and violated in ways so far reaching and long lasting that it would give some of you nightmares if you even knew. I have gone stretches of two to four years with almost literally not a single night of uninterrupted sleep. And then gotten a short respite, only to have more babies and start all over again. And really, it wasn't that bad. It turns out that I function pretty well with interrupted sleep. It probably helps that I can always fall back asleep immediately.
But this is something new. What has been happening is that I drift off for a bit while nursing the baby to sleep, then wake up to move her, and get sucked into watching a movie or talking or something with BD, and then before I know it, it's midnight, or one o'clock. I try to keep it closer to 11:00 on school nights, since I have to be at work at such an ungodly hour that I am required to get up at 6:00 a.m. (theoretically, if I want a shower). But I'm not always successful. I admit, it's hard to resist the allure of adult time after all the kids are in bed, because there's just so little of that kind of time these days. But if mama doesn't get some sleep soon, things may get ugly.
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6 comments:
I will have nightmares about this sleepless world! While I'm getting my eight hours, of course.
I HATE interrupted sleep. I like to get 7-8 hours straight each night. In fact, I take showers at night now in order to sleep a little longer in the morning. I don't know how you do it!
The loss of steady sleep was the most significant entry on the "con" side of having kids. But I'm finding that, with just a modest sacrifice of sanity, I can get by on much less rest than I thought.
Wait, you made a pros and cons list? You wacky midwesterners with your thinking things through in a systematic way.
I heard the other day that the average new parent loses about 700 hours of sleep the first year. So, you're at what, 29,645 by now?
All I have to say on this topic is coffee is my friend.
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