I would like to start this day by announcing that I feel very, very strongly that all of you who are suffering through Kids Up In The Night should find yourselves rewarded a thousandfold. I think of myself as remembering what that time was like, and I DO remember (“hell”), but it’s easy to get dazzled by a false overlay of “Oh, that darling birdy little newborn I had then!!” And I do hope I will never get so dazzled by the overlay that I will be like the older ladies in supermarkets who inform exhausted, crusty-eyed, wild-haired mothers that they should be enjoying every moment, but it seems like it must be unavoidable because why else would ANYONE get to that point?
Anyway, perhaps it is obvious that a child woke me many times last night? And that if anything can banish an overlay, it is Fresh Experience? And that even after only ONE NIGHT of this (and it’s the CUMULATIVE effect that REALLY butchers the morale), I nearly put A&D Ointment in my hair instead of hair gel?
Waking up again and again gave me such DREAMS, too, such as that Jennifer Aniston had many other people totally in her power, and also that I was a Chinese immigrant.
oh my…and here i’ve been trying NOT to remember that particular hell.
or at least trying not to dwell on how haaaard it’s going to be to have a newborn again.
(due in july.)
HA! Our almost two-year old was up several times last night, and I dreamed that our kitchen was falling apart piece by piece and also that I was pregnant.
Three of my friends have had babies in the past month and while I am smiling and congratulating, I am secretly thinking, “THANK GOD WE SLEEP ALL NIGHT LONG IN OUR HOUSE!”
I do not want to return to that particular hell. We should raise a glass to the poor souls who are still enduring.
ugh, yeah. Not looking forward to that again.
makes me seem completely off my rocker that we are trying for another baby when my “baby” is eight. We’ve had YEARS of sleeping through the night. What am I getting myself into?
It is literally this reason, almost alone, that is keeping me reasonably content with waiting even longer to try for a third baby again. Maybe my kids all talk and run around and don’t suckle at my bosom angelically anymore, but they GO TO BED AND STAY THERE. Every time I get the newborn-lust, I think, “Nursing. Every. Two. Hours.” And sometimes it’s not even nursing, it’s just trying to solve the screamies when they are UNSOLVABLE. At three in the morning. And then trying not to kill your husband in his sleep, for daring to sleep through it all.
My formerly great-sleeping almost-two-year-old has been waking us up relentlessly for almost six months. Last night she was up five times before topping it off by screaming for nearly an hour for no reason. And I’m due with #2 in February. Last night, at about 2AM, I started weeping wondering how I was going to manage two of them.
If someone had told me to enjoy every minute this morning, I might have punched them in the face. So thanks for the sympathy.
Solidarity!!
*whimper*
I’m glad you said that about the dreams. I have crazy ass dreams when I am not sleeping well.
I am smack deep in that particular hell right now…although not because of my 3 month old (sleeps through the night), but my 3 year old, who wakes up every hour, on the hour. Yesterday I felt positively chipper because I had 3 straight hours of sleep between the hours of 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. How sad is that?
Sleep deprivation is one of the only things I absolutely cannot function through. If I’m sick, or stressed, or hungry, fine, soldier on. If I’m exhausted? No dice.
Thank you for the empathy.
And the reminder that one day, I will remember this time as being SOMEWHERE OFF IN THE DISTANCE.
For me, it’s not the nursing…it’s the having to wake ALL THE WAY UP in order to get my kid ALL THE WAY back to sleep. OMFG.
Thanks Swistle, I will gladly take any reward the cosmos wants to give me. But then again I don’t feel I deserve any because the fact that my 2 year old wakes up at least once a night and it is entirely my own fault
If I didn’t give in to her she would probably stop in a few nights. I. Just. Can’t. Make. Myself. Do. It. I am overly concerned with waking everyone else in the house up. Our pediatrician told me that since I am ultimately the one affected most, it’s up to me to decide to stop it. Then she confessed that her little guy doesn’t sleep all night either. I just keep hoping it will get better and in the meantime I live on coffee.
I have two poor sleepers so I really haven’t slept well for 8.5 years, but it’s not like having a newborn. Nothing is like that.
Here’s hoping you can at least get a nap today.
And I cringe whenever anyone tells me “you are going to miss XYZ”. No, I’m sure whatever I am going through now I will not miss. Yes, I will miss my kids when they are grown and gone but I will not miss the sleepless nights, messes every where, dirty diapers, whatever happens to be driving me crazy at that particular moment…
HA! My dream last night, while holding Liv in our bed was that I was pregnant and in China, and was in a high speed car chase.
I think that worse than getting woken up by a baby every night is getting used to sleeping all night every night then being cruelly woken up over and over on a random night. If that makes sense. Which it probably doesn’t, because my baby insists on waking me up at night too.
The only nights Gabriel hasn’t woken me up in the last 46 months are the nights that he has slept elsewhere. Shoot.Me.Dead.
Holla!
This morning, as I sat with an irrationally happy baby (who had not slept for more than one hour at a stretch all night, then elected to wake up for good about four hours early), I told my husband, “This is what I imagine life in Gitmo is sort of like. Except we have a cute jailer.”
Hear, hear.
We just went through this horrible phase with my FOUR YEAR OLD where every time his eyes would so much as flick open in the night he would jump out of bed (WHOMP!) and turn his lights on.
Which would necessitate me getting out of bed to tell him that NIGHT TIME IS FOR SLEEPING. WITH THE LIGHTS OFF. And then I would have to lie awake for awhile to make sure he was going to comply with the lights off policy.
This happened once or twice a night for maybe three weeks, with me wringing my hands all the while over whether or not I should take some drastic action (e.g. cutting the power to his room) to make it stop, or whether that would be to prison-wardenish of me.
Anyway, long story short: I too have recently had a taste of (relatively mild) sleep deprivation and by the end, was in a BLACK DESPAIR by 3:00 every afternoon.
Finally, I removed the light bulb from his ceiling fixture. He watched me do it, and instead of throwing a screaming fit, he actually got sort of excited about the fact that his light switch no longer produced results. And he has slept through the night every night since.
Kids are nuts. The end.
will accept my reward in chocolate covered pretzels, thank you.
Living through newborn sleep deprivation right now. Today, I reloaded my Kroger gift card for $100, then proceeded to check out, telling the clerk I only had $30 on my gift card. When she told me I had a balance, I was all confused and stupid until I remembered from 3 minutes prior that I had reloaded the stupid card.
My 4 year old and my 6 month old have strep. The baby is also on a steroid (side effect=hyperactivity) because he was allergic to the 1st antibiotic and was covered head to toe in hives. I have not slept longer than an hour at a stretch in A WEEK. Last night while nursing the baby again at 3:30 in the morning and listening to the 4 year old moan pitifully in her bed I contemplated running away from home. Surely I could get a better nights sleep in the cold car in the driveway. And the 2 year old? He is sleeping like a champ at night so he is waking up at the crack of dawn all chipper & ready to start the day. Kill me. At least then maybe I could rest in peace. Sigh.
Leah’s comment reminded me of something you said in your postpartum post, Swistle: that sometimes you got to thinking even DEATH might be better than feeling so tired for so long.
Or something like that?
That dream made me laugh out loud. Way better than the dream about a serial killer that I had.
EXACTLY. You do not KNOW how crappy it is unless you are doing it at that exact moment. It is impossible to hold onto and remember that early sleep deprivation. When I was in the thick of the sleep-deprivation newborn thing with my second, it made me SO annoyed to have people tell me how great it was, etc. Or when my friends said now they wanted another baby after holding mine. “No you don’t,” I would tell them. “You will feel like you’re dying. Don’t do it. Trust me. The sleep thing…is horrendous.” And then they would say, “But it is over so quickly.”
And I wanted to punch them in the face.
But now? That it is (mostly) over? It was kinda quick. I guess I have to punch myself in the face now….
You are making me realize how accustomed I’ve become to complete exhaustion (my fourth baby is 6 months old (today!), and my oldest is 8 years). Do you really think dreams are more vivid with bad sleep? This would explain why I dreamt last night that I was in high school, working on a stack of worksheets, when I realized that I had a perforated colon, and an enema was the only thing that could save my life (because, well, of course).
heh I’ll take my rewards.
My first didn’t sleep through the night until I was pregnant with my second (and 100% getting up to pee every few hours). She was 2 and a few months when the first blessed sleep though the night event occured. The second kiddo, he turns one in a few days and sleeping through the night has yet to happen for him.
I am so ready to punch the next person who tells me how their precious 6 week old, 2 month old, 6 month old sleeps through the ever loving night and how wonderful it is.
He’s right in the middle of getting a molar and yes I am very, very cranky from even more sleep disturbance that usual. My dreams are also extremely vivid and disturbing the more sleep deprivation there is.
I have a sleep disorder, and yes, vivid dreams are a result of sleep deprivation, it’s one of the most common symptoms. Anyone who has gone through sleep deprivation because of kids has my utmost respect.
I did not know that is why I have crazy dreams! Thanks for enlightening me!
So someday Egg will sleep all through the night? That would be awesome. So would riches.