Sleepless in Philadelphia on Memorial Day


"Oh sleep! It is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole."
  -Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"My childhood should have taught me lessons for my own parenthood, but it didn't
because parenting can be learned only by people who have no children."
  -Bill Cosby


I'm BAAAAACK.

not.

Spencer is sleeping. Breastmilk (is that one word or two?) has an opium-like effect on him. During feeding he goes into a nod-like stupor, not easily shaken off except by diaper changes, nasal aspiration or sometimes states of undress.

Spencer sleeps quite alot, but not by any real predictable pattern yet. He also eats alot, pees alot (often times all over everything if Kleenex is not properly positioned during a diaper change) and poops alot. He doesn't cry alot, I will say that. He seems to be very specific about crying.

I am operating on an average of about 4 hours of sleep here and there. So is Guy. I think he's actually napping right now and that's a good thing.

I've been thinking about how I wanted to write this entry - I wanted to take on bullet points - issues and myths, etc. I can only come up with one right now:

SLEEP DEPRIVATION.

I was so totally convinced going in that I'd be able to handle the loss of sleep since I'm not working. I thought and said repeatedly to various friends and family: "It's not like I have anywhere to go, I'll be fine, just sleepy"
I was under the impression that it wouldn't really get to me.
WRONG!

I had a C-section and part of this process is recovery and I'm supposed to be resting. SO, I don't have anywhere to go (infact I'm not allowed to drive for at least another week + half), but I'm supposed to sleep and rest and recover. You try to "rest" when your two week old wakes up crying or fussing and needs attending to and your partner is asleep, out, outside or away from the walkie talkie (we have to use walkie talkies cause I'm not supposed to make trips up and down the stairs)

MYTH ADVICE: Get all the sleep you can in the hospital, it's the only time you'll really get to rest

THAT IS A LOAD OF CRAP. You will not sleep in a hospital room because:

1. If you have any kind of complications or a c-section, someone will be coming into your room almost hourly to take your vital signs.

2. If you don't have complications, someone will be coming into your room almost hourly in relation to the following:

• breastfeeding


• photographs


• dining menu during your stay


• snacks


• paperwork (i.e., shaken baby syndrome, birth certificate, breastfeeding)


• resident check ups


• OB check ups

Not to mention visits, phone calls, etc.

3. The walls of your room are paper-thin. I could hear my "neighbor" turning on and off the light near her bed. People are talking about something day and night and you can hear them. You will hear them when you try to sleep.

4. You may be nursing your baby on demand (they bring him/her in from the nursery every 3 hours or so) or have him/her rooming in with you, so you'll be listening to him/her breathing and making little noises and you'll be afraid to sleep because you don't want to sleep through his/her crying.

So, Moms To Be, get sleep NOW. Get it all now. Write yourself little notes about sleep you enjoyed and read them back to yourself. Get a good 10 hours for no reason at all, and when you wake up, just lie there and indulge the possibility that you might not want to get up just yet.

At the moment, I am having auditory hallucinations - I keep thinking I hear Spencer crying from his crib in the next room. I have gone in to check on him 3 times and he's asleep. Guy is sitting with me now. I think it's the first time we've just sat alone together in two weeks. It's nice. Moms to Be, make sure to spend some quality alone time with your partners. My boss told me to go out to dinner as much as possible while pregnant. I second that advice.

Now, all this being said, I'm still as happy as I have ever been. When you have a little one in the house, it makes it virtually impossible to think about any personal neuroses or other unimportant drivel. The only things you think about are sleep, diapers, nursing, the baby's comfort and food.

Having a baby is worth it. It's worth it. I promise.

You just have to lose some sleep, and in the process try to remember to sleep when you can, if you can and remember that you are sleep deprived and that's why everything feels so funky and that it will pass.