Strollerderby
Sleep-Robbing Babies Take Two Months’ Worth Per Year
the nights stretching long and lonely while keeping vigil with a baby
who never read the part of the manual that states that nighttime is for
sleeping. Remember those days? When you drive off to go out
for the first time in days or maybe weeks and for a split second you
wonder if you left the baby in his carrier outside? Or in the
house? So you turn around in a panic, narrowly missing a lamppost
in the process, but no, there’s your baby, snug and safe in his seat,
smack in the middle of the back seat where he belongs? (Or was
that just me?)
Sleep deprivation, my friends. It seems to
come with the territory of parenthood, the parent’s rite of
passage. And it’s costing us about two month’s worth of sleep
during that first precious year.
So
here’s a new one:
Competitive Sleep Syndrome. You know, where the parents argue
daily about which of them
had less sleep the night before? Or they brag to friends (often
padding
the facts) about how well their baby sleeps. So now there’s a
name for this! Who knew? Well, I know for a fact that I got
way less sleep than my ex-spouse when the children were infants; after
all, lacking breasts of usefulness to a hungry baby, he was able to
roll over and go back to sleep while I sat and watched old movies with
subtitles and the sound turned off. Ah, “quality time” (which
often was quite blissful, by the way, but sometimes though was just
plain hell).
Sound
familiar? Who stayed up with the baby in your house? (Or
were you blessed with a baby who slept through the night at five
weeks?)(And can I say I HATE YOU!) Spill it, will you?
Share your crazy sleep-deprivation stories, c’mon I know you have one!
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6 Comments
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amHubby likes to brag that he got up often…in reality he only helped through the first week. And he was incredibly affected by the sleep deprivation – I caught him putting the milk away in the cupboard.
I do think that mommies are more suited for nighttime duty *ducking* because 9 months of pregnant sleep issues is nature’s way of preparing us. We’re up a couple of times a night pacing the floor even before there is a baby. Or was that just me?
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amMy husband also helped with the night feedings. He’d get my son, change him, then take him back to burp him and put him back down when I was finished. It made it a lot easier for me. When baby #2 came along and she had her days and nights mixed up, we slept in shifts. Him from 8 to 12 and me from 12 to 4.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amThis is a shameless plug (so please delete if that’s not allowed), but how can you *really* brag about how much or how little sleep your baby is getting without hard data to back up your claim?
Trixie Tracker baby tracking software may not put an end to Competitive Sleep Syndrome but it can definitely cut down on the sleep-deprivation craziness and it gives you awesome bragging rights. Come give the 2-week free trial a try!
Ben MacNeill
President, Trixie Telemetry LLC
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amI swear, it was like my husband didn’t hear the baby until the morning. At the first “wah” I would rush out of bed to feed my son. An hour later, my DH would ask if he got up yet. Hello!!?? Why do they only give baby radar to moms in the first month? I will say, DH has gotten a lot better about getting up. Well, now that my son sleeps through the night.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amThat’s fantastic news… I’m having twins in the fall. I suppose that means I’m losing four months of sleep each year, huh?
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amEven though the kid is being breast-fed we make night wakings a business for the two of us. I get the baby and bring it to my wife so she can nurse her, then I take the baby from her and put her back to sleep. Our experience is that such an approach makes weaning down the road much easier.
Both of my kids have been terrible sleepers. The first one took her sweet time and we finally got the occasional sleep-though-the-night when she was almost a year old. Now with kid #2 we are more or less prepared. She is 5 months old and keeps us awake just as #1 used to do (last night was really tough) but we don’t really mind. We know it is temporary and we are almost half way there.
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