Sleep is so overrated! Who needs it? I haven't had a "full" nights sleep since I had Owen almost 6 years ago. Full would be 12 hours of sleep straight. Gone were the days of going to be whenever I wanted, sleeping until whatever time I wanted and napping for however long I wanted. Owen introduced us to a whole new world when he came home from the hospital. He screamed/cried the entire first night home from the hospital as he "slept" in his 110 year old cradle. The next night he slept in-between Tim and I, in our queen size bed and didn't scream all night, in fact all he did was nurse, all night long and so our adventure with co-sleeping and attachment style parenting began.
Owen ate every hour on the hour for the first 8 weeks and then every 2 hours until he was 10 months old. Having him in our bed worked for us. All I had to do was role over, lift up my shirt, unhook my bra and feed him. Once he was done he would go back to sleep, no fussing, no crying, usually. Co-sleeping with him worked because we were all able to get rest, even if it wasn't straight through the night. He slept with us until he was just shy of four. I know that some of you who are reading this are shaking your head with disbelief and utter confusion. I should say that we got a king size bed when I was pregnant with Reese, we obviously need more room! Co-sleeping isn't for everyone and to be honest I envy, really envy, just short of huge jealousy, those friends of mine whose kids have slept through the night since birth or 3 months, in their own beds. But I am resigned to the fact that neither Owen or Finn are hard-wired that way.
I know that you are noticing that I didn't say Reese! She "co-slept" with us in a co-sleeper, not our bed. She required her own space and she slept 6 hours straight when we brought her home from the hospital. Not to say that her sleep was always great because it wasn't, but boy was it a great change from Owen. She has always been our good sleeper and went straight from the co-sleeper (ours can be used as one to 30lbs) to a crib for about 4 weeks and then straight to a big girl bed! Of course when she isn't feeling 100% she might come into our room and sleep on the floor. In fact, she spent a good 8 weeks on our floor earlier the winter, after I had re-arranged her room. Needless to say, once I moved it back to the way it was before the re-arranging she was back in her room, in her own bed instead of sleeping on my floor (it took me that long to figure out that was why she wasn't sleeping in her bed).
Finn, what can I say about him? He is a TERRIBLE sleeper! He has been since he came home. He needed to be swaddled to almost complete immobility and then wrapped in another blanket and then held in one of our arm's in order to sleep. He slept like that for about 8 to 10 months. Now at almost 2, he falls asleep with one of us holding him and then is put in his "pack-n-play" until he wakes up a few hours later screaming because he is thirsty, wants a drink and wants to "cuddle his daddy" or "cuddle his mommy" and into our bed he comes. He is a sweet, loving, well adjusted kid but let me tell you, I will be throwing a huge "Sleeping through the Night" party when Finn finally sleeps through the night! I will break out the Champagne! Soon he will get a big boy bed, a bunk bed to share with his older brother, his partner in crime. Maybe then, maybe then, one can only hope, wish and pray!
If we have another one, well the whole thing I pray, will be different because I won't be nursing, because there will be more of a schedule, a more measurable amount of food that they would be being fed. Who knows, I am probably just grasping at straws, trying to convince myself that bottle-feeding equals good sleepers. I can probably say for sure though that we will still co-sleep, in one form or another because it is what works for us, for our kids, for our family and for that I am not sorry nor do I feel embarrassed. We are so quick to judge other people's parenting styles, especially if they don't make sense to us or fit our own preconceived molds. I would have never in a million years guessed that I would have ended up co-sleeping or having our kids sleep our bed. I assumed, I think like every first-time expectant mom, that my child would sleep just like me, through the night, waking up after the sun had made its appearance for the day, refreshed and ready to go. As I look back now, WOW, how naive was I and what in the world was I thinking? My life was radically changed after I had Owen, it blew me away and rocked my world. I had to wipe out every thing that I thought I knew and basically learn his play-book and how to be his mom, not the mom that I created in my head, the one that I was prepared to be, not the one I needed to be.
Sleep is still something that I long for, something that I wake up every morning wishing I had, had more of from the night before, but I figure like all things in life, it will change, it will pass and when this phase is through, I will be a more rested person. Like I said before, I can only hope, wish and pray!
Okay to to the topic that probably really brought you all to this post: Sex! Oh my poor husband and what that man has endured, I love you honey. I have definitely be the ice queen at times and the sex godess at others. How does or would he know what one to expect on any given day? When I got pregnant with Reese, my Aunt Kay asked me how it had happened since Owen slept with us! I laughed so hard! I told her it was when we were trying to have him sleep in his crib. I think that we must have had an hour by ourselves, in our own bed for that. (We did try to get him to sleep in his crib, his own space, but he would have none of it and would scream and scream until he puked everywhere, over everything and to me it just wasn't worth it.) Post-kids husband usually get the short end of the proverbial stick. They are ready to go by that 6 week post-child birth check-up, but we are usually just plain too exhausted by all the demands that are being constantly placed on us to be that little itty-bitty child's everything, by that same 6 week check-up. And half the time at 6 weeks we just want to do it so they stop asking and giving us those ridiculous googly eyes, not to say that it isn't enjoyable but boy does it seem like a chore, one more thing to check off the daily "to-do"! Any time after those 6 weeks, by the time any alone time with them comes around, we are too tired, sick of being constantly touched and just want to lay down in our own beds, in our own space, by ourselves, without anyone demanding anything from us. It is hard to separate ourselves from our different roles-mom and wife, care-taker and partner. Sometimes telling them "no, not now" is our only saving grace, the only way that we can regroup, but what if sex and the time that we focus on only one other person is the time for us to regroup, to restart ourselves? I think that it is so easy to forget that sex is what brought us to this point and created our children. At some point we were actually eager and raring to go. Practice makes perfect. And at some point we lost the point that sex isn't only for procreation but for enjoyment with that one person, that we are spending our lives with, a way to show them, physically/demonstratively, our love for them. I am not the best person at doing that. Sometimes I just want to say have your way with me because I am too tired to have my way with you. I gripe and joke with my friends about it and what a pain in the butt it is, but you know what, at the end of the day, at the end of a discussion, I love it and love that it is a way to passionately enjoy my husband, because it is only shared between us and doesn't involve anybody else.
I think that what I am saying though all of this is that don't forget yourself or your husband after 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 kids. You are more than just a mom, more than that one role you are always playing. So abandon yourself and enjoy. I guess I should take my own "advise"!
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