If it seems as though I obsessed with sleep, you're right. Of course I am. In the same way that a person giving up sugar fantasizes about a chocolate torte (that would be really tasty right now), or someone turning their back on caffeine dreams of a morning cup of coffee (that sounds good, too), I think about sleep a lot. Especially when Shira is getting ready for her second nap of the day, while I'm on my way out to do some work, all I'm thinking about is how much I want to climb into bed. And stay there sleeping for at least one weekend.
The thing is, I'd always found it odd that new parents are asked so frequently about their baby's sleep habits. I got the impression that there was a medal I didn't know about, given to parents whose babies slept through the night the fastest. Why didn't anyone tell me? I love competition. Medals aside, maybe I found the obsession with sleep a bit out of place because Alyce, for the most part, seemed to sleep the way I thought babies should: decently some of the time, sporadically the rest. She went to bed early and was in her crib for twelve hours, usually waking once for milk. (Our early obsession around Alyce revolved mostly around breastfeeding. I'll save that for another day.) Sure, I was often tired, but I didn't understand the obsession with sleep.
Now I do. I really, really do.
p.s. Looking through my iphone last night, I realized that not only am I obsessed with talking about Shira's sleep, it seems that I'm also a bit nuts about taking her photo while she's sleeping (as you can see here). If you give me an iphone, there will be a photo of sleeping Shira on it in no time.
My babe was a terrible sleeper up until he was about 16 months old....up 2-6 times per night, every night, to nurse. Happily, he was not fussing, and as long as I'd nurse him he'd go right back to sleep. I always marvelled at those people who said their babies would go to bed at 7 and sleep til 7 the next AM with only 1 or even 0 feeds without any kind of 'sleep training' -- it seemed utterly impossible to imagine.
ReplyDeleteAnd then when he got to be about 16 months, I told him we would only nurse when the sun was shining. It totally worked. The first few nights night I remember he woke up once or twice and asked to nurse and I told him "not until the sun is shining," and he went back to sleep. Within a few days he was sleeping through the night.
But those 16 months killed me. I felt like a zombie, and it's one of a handful of reasons I decided not to have any more kids.
So all that is a long-winded way of saying "I sympathize, dearie"!
The reason you take pictures of her sleeping is to remind yourself that she actually knows how when your ready to go nutso
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