I’m exhausted. The baby, who is currently napping (fingers crossed) is historically not the best sleeper, and this week has been particularly rough. 45 minute naps, waking up multiple times in the night. And when she’s tired, she’s craaaannnkkkkyyy. I don’t have any idea where she gets that from. So she’s not sleeping anywhere near enough, then when she’s awake, she’s a grump. On top of that, I’ve been having trouble sleeping. That makes ZERO sense, because I’m beat, but I just lay there and toss and turn. I developed a terrible habit when I was young of falling asleep to the TV (don’t let your kids have TVs in their bedrooms!!). When we had a baby, it turned into falling asleep watching TV on my phone with headphones on (romantic, I know). I also have a weird obsession with Law & Order SVU. Not the most relaxing nighttime viewing for most, but it works for me. Whatever that says about me psychologically…. don’t read too much into it….
So the night before last, I lay down after a long day of quarantining, put my headphones on and prepare to fall into a deep dark sleep. I spend the next hour tossing and turning until finally my eyes drift off, and there she is. Awake. Yelling in her crib. I wait a bit, and it only gets worse. I’m fairly certain I threw a mini tantrum at that point, as I got up to nurse her. Now I know many of you will say, “just let her cry”. And I have done that. Sometimes it works. Sometimes she screams her brains out for an hour. I wanted to go back to sleep. So, I get up, we do our thing, and my magnificent husband decides to take her down to the couch to lay with her. No judgement please- we do this rarely, when she’s having a really hard time sleeping, in a very safe manner. He knows it’s best for all involved if I get some sleep- he’s a saint really.
And with that, I lay back down, ready to drift back into a peaceful slumber. The next three hours was spent not slumbering. Tossing & turning, huffing & puffing, clicking “next episode” of SVU. And as I was laying there, I missed my baby. Like actually missed her. Like wished she was snuggling with me in my arms missed her. I have no logical reason to have missed her… was it just the lack of sleep getting to me?
Fast forward to the next night. As I was getting ready to go up to bed, a little earlier than usual, I hear her awake and crying in her bedroom. I decide to just get her up and nurse her, since she’d hear me go into my room anyway and get even more mad. So I take her into my room, in the rocking chair, and let her nurse as long as she wants. Usually I try to keep nighttime feedings short, so that we can get to sleep. 45 minutes later I realized I should probably call it. And then I held her for another I don’t even know how long. My husband texted me to say goodnight, thinking I was already in bed, and I didn’t know how to even explain that I hadn’t even put her down yet. Here I was, exhausted, hadn’t sleep well in a week, had planned on putting myself to bed early that night, the babe was long asleep (she had fallen asleep nursing), and I couldn’t bring myself to put her down. I just held her squishy little self and stared at her perfect face, and I realized- either I’m just a complete nut job, or this is the craziness of motherhood- being completely exhausted but still not being able to get enough of the perfect little being you created.
** Note- she has now been sitting in her crib for approximately one hour, NOT napping. Staring at the ceiling, playing with her sleep sack, talking, yelling, rocking back and forth, standing up,… Lord help me…