Since Baby's arrival in mid December Sleep and I have been redefining our relationship. At first I thought Sleep was going to have a hard time adjusting to having Baby around. After all, Baby was going to be telling Sleep when to visit, and how long to stay. That's not an easy transition for anyone. In the hospital Sleep only visited occasionally, and at really odd times. So I thought bringing Baby home was going to be rough on Sleep. But then the first night we had Baby home Sleep came right away, and stayed for 5 hours. I thought, we can totally do this! And we did, for a few nights. But alas, Baby decided I needed to spend more time with him and less time with Sleep, so Sleep and I had to adjust. We agreed on a new routine of visiting each night several times, for 3 hours at a time.
After the first week I adjusted to this new visitation schedule and Sleep didn't seem to mind. We settled in just in time for Baby's first growth spurt. If you don't have children you may not understand, but there is no time for Sleep when Baby is nursing every hour for at least 40 minutes...It's a good thing babies have short, frequent growth spurts instead of marathon growing that lasts more than a week, or mothers everywhere would be dead.
After our 1-week break, Sleep and I were granted a glorious reunion by Boo: 8 hours (nearly uninterrupted) together to get reacquainted. After our catch-up, we settled back into our routine of visiting for 3 hours at a time. It really isn't all that bad. Sure it's not as deep of a relationship as Sleep and I used to have, but we are getting by. And Sleep doesn't even seem to mind all that much. Even through Baby's second growth spurt Sleep and I managed to keep our schedule relatively steady. We had even had a few blessed nights that we spent 6 hours straight together. I was so happy to be getting back to the way things were.
Until the time change.
Seriously! Never in my life did I think a one-hour time leap would leave my relationship with Sleep in shambles! And I certainly never expected Sleep to adjust so well to having Baby only to abandon me over a routine Daylight Savings Time clock change! Sure Daylight Savings weekend has been a bit of a rough patch before, but nothing like this. Baby's schedule got turned completely upside down, and on top of it Sleep apparently went on vacation.
For the first week post DST Baby was growing again and Sleep and I should have been on 90 minute intervals. But I found myself putting Baby to bed and Sleep was nowhere to be found! I looked for nearly a week! Nothing. Finally, when I thought my life would end if Sleep didn't come back there he was, waiting for me. Before DST I thought 6 hours with Sleep was a blessing, but that night the 3 hours we spent together were truly miraculous.
I could tell Sleep was feeling a little hurt that I had been neglecting him, and so for the past few weeks I've been doing my best to catch up with my dear friend. We had to again adjust our meeting schedule to fit with Baby, but this time Baby was granting us longer periods together, and I've been making an effort to visit with Sleep a little longer in the mornings. It's been working pretty well.
But last night I discovered something about Sleep. Sleep is a funny thing. For months Sleep and I have been spending less time together than usual, and I though if we could just get back to longer visits on a routine basis everything would be fine. I know I've been a little tired and draggy, but I thought if I could just get some more time with Sleep that would change. Then last night I got more time with Sleep. Baby had a great night, and Sleep and I spent nearly 12 hours together, with only 2 short interruptions. But this morning I found out that Sleep has been leading me on. Sleep implied that if we could just spend a little more time together I would feel better, and be back to my old self. But today after a long night with Sleep I am more tired than usual!
So now, Sleep and I must have another talk about our schedule, and find the happy medium. Too little time with sleep make for a Mombie (that's a Mom that's really a Zombie) but too much time with Sleep leads to lethargy and a severe drop in motivation.
Oh Sleep, you are indeed a funny thing!
:)
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