Sleep Deprivation

My babies were good sleepers. It is something that we didn't talk about too much when they were little as to avoid glares, poison darts, and murderous threats from our friends with small children. But they just slept well! John Mark slept almost 8 hours straight his first night home from the hospital. And both of them were sleeping a good 8-10 hours a night by the time they were 6 weeks old.

Besides that JP and I had a good system. Since my babies were bottle fed and he was a night owl, I would go to bed at 9pm and he would feed them around 12 or 1 am. Then they would sleep until at least 4 or 5am giving Mom a good 7 or 8 hours of straight sleep. It worked. Rarely did I feel that "New Mother Sleep Deprived Agony".

So all this to say that I thrive on sleep. I am not a naturally good sleeper and have relied on the wonders of Ambien for years. Moment of silence please for modern medicine..................Okay back to my thoughts. I "need" at least 8 hours a night, preferably 10. Kind of ironic since I work nights and often go over 24 hours without sleep. But when I do fall into that bed and it is actually nighttime, I covet those 6-8 hours of sleep that I will actually get once the Ambien kicks in. Don't bug me, don't touch me, don't snore or breathe too loudly. Just let me be and you will have a relatively happy mom, wife, and friend the next morning.

But the past three nights I have been interrupted by small children needing their mom. Saturday night John Mark came into our room at 1am crying. This is rare for him. But his ear hurt and it took me over an hour to get him calmed down and back asleep. (We found out on Sunday that he has an ear infection and bronchitis but is now on the mend). Sunday night Riley came in around 4am telling me that she was thirsty. So we went downstairs, filled her cup up with water and I put her back to bed. Of course that kept me awake for over an hour. So before bed last night I told her that if she was thirsty she could get up and get herself some water from the bathroom. I thought I was safe. I settled into my bed last night convinced that I would sleep well. But no.

3am I feel a small hand touch my foot. It immediately wakes me up and I know it is Riley. She tells me she can't find her stuffed bunny. This is one of her hundreds of excuses for waking up in the night (my favorite is that there is too much "stuff" in her bed....all of which she put there). I am way too tired to take her back downstairs so I pull her into the bed with me. I should know this is a bad plan, but at 3am I wasn't thinking rationally. She tossed and turned and stole my pillows. She threw her blanket in my face. When she finally fell asleep it was with her leg draped over my body. I had about 2 feet of the bed and a little bit of the sheet. I think I finally drifted off around 5:45. And the alarm went off at 6:15 for me to get up and get John Mark on the bus.

So here I sit with my strong cup of coffee wondering if this is payback for all of those good nights of sleep when my babies were young. I'm sure some of you other moms are laughing that devilish laugh as you say a resounding "YES"!!