Tuesday, January 11, 2011

How I Get Sleep



This week has been a monumental fail.  Parenting fail after fail after fail.  But, since this is supposed to be an upbeat post, I thought I'd talk about sleep.

For whatever reason, the babes have returned to their newborn schedules of waking up one to three times at night.  Which is why they end up in bed with us.  And this is what usually happens.

Sometime around 2 AM: Emily screams at the top of her lungs, I stumble out of bed, cursing, sure there is something dreadful happening and retrieve her from her room.  I place her in the middle of our bed and hope she sleeps.

Close to 4 AM: Andrew starts whimpering, than crying, then screaming.  Once again, I stumble out of bed*.  This time I go to the kitchen, prepare some milk, then pick him up from the crib.  I scoot Emily closer to her dad, place Andrew next to her, and hope he goes back to sleep.

Probably around 5 AM: Kids start rolling and jumping around, laughing, and alternate between sticking their bums on our faces and pulling our hair.  I grab them, grumbling nothing but sweet words under my breath, take them back into their rooms and hope they will sleep for AT LEAST another hour or so in their cribs.

Sooner than I wished: Kids wake up, yell, "MOM!" (Emily yells, Andrew babbles something like dadad mamama tyenah (Tylenol, his first word),  I stare at the ceiling wondering how long I can keep them in their rooms.

My sleep is less than optimal while they are in bed with me, and, rather than figuring out why they are waking up, I do what I can to expend the least amount of energy possible in the middle of the night.

It may not be the best solution, but it works for me.

*Since Ben is working two jobs, I think it's best that he gets all the sleep he can. Still, there are many nights where he takes his turn with the kids.

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13 comments:

  1. Night time is the right time to find the path of least resistance. Especially if you or they are sick.

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  2. When Jack wakes up, he usually gets to sleep with us, too. Or sometimes I'm so cold and lazy that I don't even want to return to my bed - I just climb into his. (Life after a crib is great that way!)

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  3. We got Eden sleeping through the night FINALLY for about a month and then she quit doing it again. After a miserable six weeks of getting up during the night, we discovered she'd had an ear infection this whole time and now she's sleeping through the night again.

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  4. ya so you sound just like every other mom in the UNIVERSE! My kids are often in my bed cause sometimes having a mom that gets some type of sleep, even if it's not good sleep, is better then no sleep at all. I've never felt guilty for this and NEITHER should you! I'm convinced that we all have moments of "survival mode, or auto pilot" in our parenting and they are essential to having moments of Excellence! Love you Amber you are the PERFECT mom for your kids-that's why they're yours!!

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  5. We are trying to transition our daughter into her bed in her room, but it has been a challenge. We have a queen bed donut gets pretty cramped when she wants to crawl in and sleep with us. For now our solution us an air mattress at the foot of our bed.

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  6. Thanks, Janae! I really don't believe that if you let your kid sleep with you they will NEVER leave. Emily has, finally, slept through the night again the past two nights. It must have been a phase she finally passed!

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  7. HA! See, a kid's sleeping patterns will change constantly! Illness and other things will bring them right back to that newborn schedule.

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  8. We tried putting Emily in a toddler bed a couple weeks ago. BIG MISTAKE. She did not sleep the entire night. We finally put her back in the crib because we were so desperate. (Maybe that's what started this whole thing?) So I understand completely.

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  9. Yes! The "path of least resistance" is exactly where I go.

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  10. Is he in a toddler bed? Oh, Leslie, we tried transitioning Emily from her crib to a toddler bed. It was a big, fat fail. That said, I don't think I could sleep in her bed with her. Not enough space.

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  11. I would do pretty much anything for a full night's sleep or as close to one as possible, so I hear you. I HEAR you!



    Funny anecdote, to distract you from your exhaustion: My daughter got up three times one night last week, and the baby got up once. I handled three of those sleep interruptions, and my husband handled one (which lasted about two minutes). He was a zombie the next day, moaning and groaning and chugging coffee like he'd been up half the night. Then, when I smiled and said something like, "Welcome to my world" (in a funny, upbeat, nonjudgmental kind of way, of course), he said, "But you're used to it!" Ha! There is no "used to it"!



    Sweet dreams (I hope!), friend.

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  12. [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Amber, Amber. Amber said: How do you maximize your sleep when your kids wake up multiple times at night? http://wp.me/p18NsG-kQ (New Post) [...]

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  13. That's tough. My 2.5 year old goes in streaks where he'll wake up once or twice in the night. Sometimes it's nightmares sometimes we have no idea why. After a few minutes we can usually calm him down and he goes back to sleep in his own bed. It's tough isn't it, those middle of the night wakings?

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