Precious Sleep

It seems babies are being born all around lately, and it had me thinking about sleep, even before last night. You see, I don't exactly have the kinds of babies that like to sleep much. They are more like the kinds of newborns that like to eat. Jack didn't sleep through the night til he turned one. Sam was like an alarm clock at night, 12:05, 2:05, 4:05, 6:05. He ate every two hours, and I had to feed him. Especially with Sam, the newborn crazy eating phase was hard on me because Keith was gone and I was tired at night, and still had to get up and actually be human in the mornings for Jack. I have to say that in consideration of having a third child ever, one of the things I think of most is, "Ahh, the endless night wakings, I don't know if I can do that again." For some reason, though, it is almost impossible to feel any anger or contempt toward a small human, at least for me, for waking you up to nurse in the night, because they are just so tiny and innocent and you know they are hungry so you just do it and don't even really seethe about it later. That is not so much the case, however, if I get woken up now.

I am a mean mommy if someone wakes me up. I have a decent amount of patience in the daylight hours, but if one of my kids, especially one that is four, is annoying me in the night I might not be so nice at all. And you see, Jack is not at all a conventional sleeper. He still naps most days, and he sleeps through the night and all and doesn't have accidents so I can't complain about his sleeping too much. It has just become SUCH A pain to get him to go to sleep at night. He has a reliable bedtime routine but it just that you do that and he is still in no way drowsy and about to go to bed or even about to stay in his bed. He wants to sleep on the ground, and preferably the ground outside of our bedroom.


It drives me nuts that he won't stay in his bed. I honestly do feel sorry for him if he is "scared" like he says he is, of the dark, of bugs, of monsters or of anything. I was the most scared of the dark kid ever so I get that. I just want him to GO TO SLEEP so I can GO TO SLEEP MYSELF. I'm selfish like that.

Last night, we miraculously got both our kids down to bed at 6:30 and they went to sleep (I have been trying playing music in Jack's room for the last two nights and so far it has been keeping him in bed). They were SO EXHAUSTED and Jack had had no nap and that isn't so early for Sam on a regular basis. One of my favorite neighbors in Okinawa had her kids to bed every night at 6:30 pm (at 4 1/2 and 1) and we were all always extremely jealous when she was outside drinking tea and it was still daylight and we still had hours of kids going to bed routines to be done. So anyway, we were all proud of ourselves that Jack went to sleep in his bed for the first time in like forever and we even watched TV alone.

Ahh, you knew that we were in for it, didn't you? In the middle of the night Jack came in our bedroom and started sleeping on our floor. He often drags his pillow and blanket in and we don't hear him. So, Keith gets up at like 1:30 am to go to the bathroom and doesn't know Jack is there and thus steps on his face. This DID NOT go over well if you can imagine. Jack is awoken by his face being stepped on and was pissed to the highest order. Keith held him and calmed him down and he finally laid back down on his pillow. As he was drifting off to sleep, I would like to note that he said, "I am going to HIT mommy IN HER FACE when she wakes up!" Umm, excuse me? What did mommy do here?

So, about 3:01 am Sam starts crying. After ten minutes Keith is saying "What are we going to do with the baby?" I can ignore kids crying a lot longer than he can. So he gets milk and feeds him and we give him Tylenol b/c he is teething and carry Jack back to his bed so Sam doesn't wake him up too. After about 10 minutes Sam is fed, diapered, and chilled out. So we put him back in bed. Freak out city again, screaming. This lasts for the next two hours. Once we get him calmed down each time he will be happy as day in the dark in our bed, playing peek-a-boo with the covers, pointing out balls in the shadows, etc. But don't go put him back or heaven help you.

So, at about 10 til five am I kick Keith out of the bedroom, because he will not be able to sleep through the crying and I am so tired I know I probably will be able to. So Keith goes to the couch and I put Sam back and he cries about ten minutes and goes to sleep.

So from the hours of 1-5:30 am we probably slept about an hour. It just isn't pretty. This is the same way you feel in the mornings with a newborn and I don't have fond memories of feeling this weary when you have a whole day of kids to weather. The difference is at this age, I do sort of blame them.