Chasing sleep

I'm exhausted. That's all I can say. The combined efforts of the two munchkins is enough to wipe out ten adults. Anyway, both have different sleep patterns and these patterns keep changing. A few days ago, they refused to sleep the entire morning and only crashed at 3 pm leading me to believe that the iced tea I surreptitiously drank the day before had something to do with it.

Then there's the asleep but fidgety son of mine. Through most of the night, he's pretty much concussed. With the pre-dawn hours come his fidgety, stretchy, noisy non-REM sleep where he spends a great amount of time stretching, groaning (yes, our 8 week old son groans), kicking vigourously, pretty much all the activity that would keep himself awake. This translates into a very sleepy mommy trying very hard to calm him down and getting him back to non-thrashing sleep. I often try to do it with minimal consciousness, that way, I can lull myself into believing that I'm actually still asleep. But it's hard to do that when you're constantly kicked in the stomach, poked in the face and headbutt in the chest.



My daughter, on the other hand has different sleep patterns. She doesn't thrash so much and seems to easily be lulled to sleep (provided she's not hungry!) if held close to you. I know there are people out there who will say that I am then spoiling her and teaching her that it is ok if you need someone to put you to bed. My response to that is, whatever makes her feel secure and right now, whatever works.

The outcome is a comatosed baby who often looks bedraggled and messy by morning. I love this photo because she's somehow or other nearly kicked her own pants off. On top of that, the pants are skewed and even though it can't be seen, her top has ridden up at the back. But the most important thing is she was asleep and stayed that way till 9 am, allowing mommy an hour of sleep which at this point, is better than nothing.

Gina Ford talks about putting the babies on a routine and she prescribes an extremely detailed one that goes right down to the minute. I would love to have the babies on such a regimen, but that's what it is, a regimen. And it's a regimen that doesn't take into account the fact that babies don't necessarily obey books and it is not always possible to feed the baby before 7.30 in the morning and only have the baby wake at 10 for the next feed. The reality of the situation is, they'll probably feed at 7.30 and then fuss and kick about all the way to the 10am feed. I wish it were as easy, because if it were, I wouldn't be writing this half asleep and needing to climb up and down 14 flights of stairs to make them drowsy enough to fall off to sleep. The bright side of that is I get a little bit more fit and the muscles are a little bit more toned. The bad side of it is, I'm tired, I'm already sleepy and yet, I'm still traipsing up and down the stairs.

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