Monday, July 27, 2009

Glorious sleep

Anyone who has had a baby who doesn't sleep much can probably relate to this statement a friend of mine once made to me "you understand now why they use sleep deprivation as a method of torture, don't you?" And it's true - not sleeping, or being woken every time you just doze off can make you start to feel crazy. Weepy. Insane.

I'm lucky that I can do with relatively little sleep. I learned that with Kiernan and it's certainly been put the test again this time with two babies who sleep better individually than K did, but dude, there are two of them!!! I've spent the last 11 weeks re-strategizing regularly to come up with something else that might work a bit better. I've spent weeks sleeping in a chair in the babies' room with babies in my lap because it was easier than trying to stay awake and put babies back into their cribs (especially when they might wake up if I put them down), and then weeks with the babies sleeping in their individual swings in the living room while I slept half on the mat on the floor, half on the couch because I just couldn't stay awake. Thankfully the babies were starting to sleep a bit more as I was getting more and more worn down, but as of last week, I was officially toasted and was pretty sure I was going to start dropping babies in the night.

Eric (and the fact that the babies are drinking formula from bottles pretty well now) rescued me and let me sleep this weekend. I got 6.5 hours in a row on Friday night and 5 on Saturday! Sweet sweet, glorious sleep!! And then! Last night? We put the babies down in their room and Eric and I both slept in our own bed for the entire night with only a one hour break at 4 am.

I won't presume to believe I'm going to get this regularly, but if we're heading in this direction, I am so grateful because seriously... I'm concerned for my long term ability to form sentences and think like a normal human being if I keep being this sleep deprived - it must be killing brain cells.

6 comments:

(slightly) less cynical said...

Remember when you blogged about how awesome the swing was and the next day the swing started acting all wonky? ;)

Lara said...

No no. I wrote "I won't presume to believe I'm going to get this regularly." That covers the jinx ;)

Some kind of Mom said...

That is truly amazing.

Lindsay said...

I bet you nearly cried with relief at how that night went, even if it doesn't happen again. Totally remember that feeling. *shudder*

Capital Mom said...

Sleep is everything. So glad to hear you got some. What a big difference it makes.

nonlineargirl said...

If I am reading this right you have been doing most (all?) night feeding yourself, which completely blows me away. You are super-human, girl.