Sleep

It’s 7:34 in the morning here…6:34 according to my clock. I’m in Michigan and being in the Eastern time zone it’s a little later than what I feel like it should be. I’m normally up at this time anyway so that in itself is not a big deal. My problem is that I couldn’t sleep last night. Actually, Owen couldn’t sleep last night and of course that means that neither could I.

He was exhausted after a long day on the road. He had been quite good. He complained about being in his car seat, so I gave him plenty of breaks and there was not a lot of crying in the car. He just complained when I put him back into it each time but then he would settle in and play or babble to himself. At one point he realized that if he turned around he could see me and this kept him occupied for quite a while. Of course the only way I could see him was to turn around too, so I tried not to be too encouraging. I didn’t want to send reports home that we had totaled the car because of a game of peek-a-boo. When we got to Grandpa’s house he was excited to play and crawled straight to Grandpa when he walked in the door. He got hungry around 7:30, so it was 8:30 our time. A reasonable bed-time for him. He ate and fell asleep and didn’t even stir as I laid him down for the night…or so I thought.

He woke up at midnight and would not settle down. He has been sleeping through the night and I don’t like to encourage nursing him once he’s gone to bed because I don’t want him to think he can wake up anytime he wants and get food. So I gave it a good shot before feeding him. He woke up again at 2:15…again we struggled and I finally gave in. He woke up at 4. I just fed him. He woke up at 6:00 I fed him again. I’m having a really hard time this entire scenario finding a way to sleep myself. I didn’t bring his pack-n-play, thinking that he has been sleeping so well it won’t be needed. So there was no way to hem him in. I had tried putting him on the floor but when he woke up he started to crawl out the door and since we are upstairs this would be somewhat dangerous. The problem with putting him in the bed is that I don’t sleep very still. I move around a lot and tend to switch sides often. If I move and he’s in the bed he wakes up and of course wants to eat. I was laying there holding him…he can sleep just fine that way…but I can’t. I start sweating wherever he’s touching me and my arm falls asleep and I can’t move and I just can’t sleep that way. I started thinking…I’ve never had a night like this when it struck me that I had…Mother’s day! The night before Mother’s day was very similar. We were at home but he refused to sleep more than two hours at a time. I felt horrible and just like last night, wanted to scream! I realized that once again I had not eaten enough. The Mother’s Day episode was because I had been sick the day before and my stomach was just too upset to eat much. Therefore when I nursed Owen, he didn’t get much. I remember thinking, that the milk was there, but it was not nourishing enough for the long haul. Yesterday, I ate on the road and in trying to make good time and coordinate with a baby on my own I skipped a meal. I wasn’t hungry because I still snacked the entire time, partly to keep me awake while I was driving. I never thought about it being a problem later, but once again this is a lesson I will not forget. Today…I’m going to eat like a pig!