Week 2: The Un-Sleepening

Ahhhh.... Nothing like waking up to find the sun has already risen over the horizon, or just before the sunrise.  If you're like me, you wake up, look around for a bit while your eyes adjust.  Then you slowly sit up with your feet hanging off of the edge, drink some water, then rotate your neck and stretch your arms back to get all the kinks out, savoring that popping sound peacefully, then quietly step out of bed, hoping your partner doesn't wake up.  Then you walk out of the room to either enjoy some time to yourself while everyone sleeps (I'm usually the first or second awake in my house), or to get ready for school/work/any other commitments.

I'm sure you have your own routines for the morning.  Now, close your eyes, and really think about that routine, and all the nice little parts of it, try to get as clear a picture as possible...

You got the image?  Good.

Now say goodbye to it.  All of it.  Because something else is about to replace it.

"What's that, you devilishly handsome blog writer?"  You probably didn't ask yourself but for the purposes of this entry I'm going to assume that you did.  Well my friend, what's going to replace that is waking up every two to three hours, probably more, that's what.

At first, doing it is actually pretty easy.  These past couple weeks, I've done most of the waking up for the baby, but that's because complications with the epidural triggered migraines in my girlfriend that make it extremely difficult for her to get up sometimes.  But those first few days after my daughter was at home, I had no problems doing it.  About three times a night, I would wake up hearing her cry, change her, prepare a formula bottle, feed her, burp her, take care of hiccups if there were any (this could take forever), then she'd fall back to sleep in my arms, and I'd put her down in her bassinet and be back in bed within an hour of when I woke up.  Two to three hours later, be up and do it again.  Except for the Tuesday after, I'd stay awake around seven-thirty and spend some daddy/daughter time in the living room while my girlfriend slept.  No problems.  I got this.

And then, on a night where I was particularly tired, I took some Nyquil, and passed right the hell out.  Even though my girlfriend promised to wake up each time for the baby that night, I ended up having to do it because my girlfriend ended up with a pretty bad migraine.  Even still, that night was pretty easy.  But when the sun rose, and I tried to get out of bed, and I realized something.

Doing it the first few nights is easy.  Keeping it up after that?  Eh... not so much.  After the first few nights, it starts hitting you.  The exhaustion doesn't really hit me during the day.  The thing about it is that once I'm up and moving, I don't really feel it until I start slowing down.  But once I do, it's like my body goes, "Oh, we're stopping?  Cool!  Allow me to show you how I really feel.  Like CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!"  And that's how it was for a few days.

And then, Monday morning came.  And baby didn't want to go to sleep. So, from 3:30-7:30 am, I was forced to stay awake.  The first few hours by the second feeding and that she just didn't want to go to sleep, then she got the hiccups, thankfully, after what felt like frickin' forEVER, my mom woke up for work and took care of the hiccups (like a BOSS (like she always does), then about half an hour later, baby finally fell asleep.  But, at that point, the sun had already come up so I didn't fall asleep until 7:30, and even then, I only slept for an hour.

Bottom line: say goodbye to a full night's sleep.  The baby will have to be taken care of a few times every night (duh), and someone's gotta wake up to do it.  Changing the baby and preparing the bottle are the easiest and quickest parts.  Feeding can take a while, depending on how fast the baby wants to eat.  Hiccups can be pretty difficult, because those can take quite a while to get rid of, or they might just go away on their own, you really can't tell until they're gone.  Sometimes, though, your baby will want to sleep, but once you put them down, they'll wake right back up and you'll have to come right back to them.  Other times, they don't want to sleep at all, but they want you to be with them.  Or, you might feed them, just to have them mess their diaper again right before you put them in the bassinet, so you'll have to change, then that'll upset them, then you gotta calm them down again.  Even if all that goes well, if your baby starts moving around in their sleep, even though they're fine, they might make little grunts and other weird sounds that'll wake you right up from a deep sleep.  Even though most of these sounds mean nothing, for a new parent, each little sound makes you go "what does that sound mean?"  The result: you stay awake until the noises stop.

Babies are confusing and bad for sleep is kind of what I'm getting at.  A few things to make it easier: firstly, sleep when the baby sleeps.  Dear God, I cannot stress that enough.  Naps are lovely, your baby knows this, and you should realize it for yourself.  Secondly, work out a system with your partner.  Take turns, alternate nights, do something.  It doesn't have to be  something concrete, and you don't have to hold to it religiously, but share the load.

I'm glad I posted this late, because this morning was one hell of an experience.  When it came time to wake up for the second feeding, the exhaustion had me frustrated.  Everything seemed to bother me.  The water heated up slowly - annoyed me.  The baby needed a change after I fed her - even more so.  I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open, but my girlfriend's head hurt bad enough that she couldn't really get up, so I had to do it.

Finally, my mom woke up and took the baby off my hands to (again) take care of the hiccups, demanding that I go back to bed.  From the exhaustion, I almost cried.  I hadn't felt that terrible since I got back from Korea, and I couldn't even start getting tired until the sun had already risen.  Thankfully, my girlfriend took care of the next couple feedings and let me sleep until I woke up on my own around eleven in the morning.  I gotta say, it's a weird feeling seeing that it's 9:24pm, and yet, I've only been awake ten hours...not one that I'm adverse to, despite the fact that even before the pregnancy, I couldn't sleep past eight in the morning.

Despite only ten hours awake though, I am starting to get really tired.  That, and the episode of How I Met Your Mother just finished, so I might as well be off to bed, so I'm going to end this here (even though I could just continue this in a few hours after the next feeding).

Goodnight, Readers!  I'll try to post again this Thursday.
-Jack, the Dude Dad.