THE SLEEP DEPRIVED GET LUCKY

I have to say I feel REALLY lucky.

I am not a person that does well on low sleep. I mean, I REALLY do not do well. Anyone that sat next to me in a college class (even during 1 or 2 discussions…sadly and to the enragement of my companions…on my mission) can attest that I fall asleep WAY too easily WHEN I AM NOT SUPPOSED to. I am usually NOT blessed to fall asleep as quickly at night.

When Brooke was a newborn, Brian and I were BOTH sleep deprived. Everything was new – we switched off very evenly so we were both pooped at all times.

We were also delusional. Once I woke up at 2 AM and found Brian looking frantically between the wall and our bed where we stashed pillows at night. He was crazily tossing them and looking underneath them like a madman.

I said, “WHAT’S WRONG?”

“I just dropped Brooke down here!!” he said in a panicked voice. He kept frantically searching while he talked.

“You did WHAT?!!?” I asked now panicked myself.

Brian said shakily as he kept searching, “I was holding her and I dropped her!”

I rapidly joined him on the side of the bed and began frantically searching myself, the panic and alarm rising with my now rapid heartbeat.

What a site to see – two very tired 24-year-olds at one side of the bed, lifting up pillows in a FRENETIC fashion and trying to find a 7 lb little baby in a 1 foot gap between the bed and wall.

After about 5 minutes of feelings of SHEER TERROR and PANIC in the Wayne household, we hear a little TINY BABY NOISE coming from the cradle. We both turned around and see Brooke quietly sleeping in her cradle.

We looked at each other blankly.

Then, as the situation VERY SLOWLY registered in our brains, we turned the lights off breathing a sigh of relief and zapped into a deep sleep.

With Brooke, these delusional happenings were, embarassingly, normal. We can laugh about them now, but it got a little much! She started sleeping through the night at 9 weeks, and these episodes disappeared.

With Tyler, I was a very merciful wife, and NEVER woke Brian up. I had come to realize that waking up Brian was actually MUCH harder that just picking up the Tyler and feeding him. I would be trying for about 2 minutes – once in a while – to wake up Brian.

For those who don’t know, he is the world FASTEST and DEEPEST sleeper. Stories about him growing up are LEGENDARY. So I digressed and kept the sleep deprivation to myself.

Tyler started sleeping through the night at 10 weeks and my sanity returned.

With Kylianne, I don’t bother to wake up Brian either. Again, - the effort is PARMOUNT to even TRY to wake up Brian. Who can really exert that much effort at 3 AM successfully????? (although sometimes I make him sweat a little by telling him, he gets to do all the middle of the night feeding the next week, now that he is in Summer Vacation).

Well, cute Kylianne was my record breaker – started sleeping through the night at 4 ½ weeks!!!! PRAISES TO HEAVEN!!! She sleeps about 6/12 to 7 hours starting at 11 PM – and she does it 4 out of 5 nights now. And I must say, it SURE makes me a better mom to have a little more sleep!!!!

Now if I could just get Brooke not to confuse our bedroom with the bathroom at 2:00 AM when she gets up to use the bathroom....