Tuesday, June 24, 2008

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....

6 comments:

Andrea said...

I too struggle without sleep. I was blessed with Skylar who slept 12 hours fairly early, but with Trevor it was terrible! He was probably 10 months old before he consistently slept through the night. I'm sure, because I thought this way before I had him, that people figured I was doing something wrong, or that I just needed to let him cry it out, but the kid was relentless and would cry for two hour stretches in the night. Okay, enough complaining. He sleeps now and I am once again happy--but those first 10 months were rough! I'm very jealous of your good sleeper and IF I ever have the courage to have another kid, I pray to the heavens above to have a good sleeper!

Cami said...

WOW! Congrats! I love your crazy lost baby story. HA!

So, how are her naps? My Janey sleeps through the night now and then, actually 7 or 8 hours! But that usually starts at 8:00 or so, so it's not AS exciting as if it started at 11:00. That would be lovely. My happiness about Jane's sleep is that she usually goes back to sleep after a feed at night. That is good enough for me!

Jones said...

baby wise baby wise BABY WISE!!! THANKS for passing that book on to me when I was a new mom!!!

Palomita said...

Don't mind me, green with envy, writing this. Sarah still wakes up at least 2 times a night. I'll guess we'll keep working on it...

I remember in college that you were way better than me at getting to bed at a decent hour. Funny - it doesn't seem like that was 11 years ago, does it?

Kylianne keeps getting cuter, and cuter, every picture you post, and she was dang cute to begin with!

Bonnie Wayne said...

Jessica - TOTALLY!! Thanks to Jen Ross who passed it on to me when I was a new mom! I will forever be indebted to her for that!

Johanna said...

My first day in the field mission I was so tired that i felt sleep in the chair in the middle of the discussion!!!, actually it' wasn't in the middle, was in the first pray, I close my eyes and I opened when I heard "Amen" but was the final pray...
But, now that I'm a mom it's so different, Once I was wake 3 days and nights in a row when my son was sick and I was 6 month pregnant. And I don't know why, but I wake up several times through the night when i hear any movement in their bedrooms... Ah!, and you are such a blessed mom, both of them don't sleep through the night until 15 months, when I stopped the brestfeeding.