Tag Archives: Sleep

A Whole Lot Of Random.

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It’s been quite a few days since I’ve written, and that leaves me where it usually does… a whole lot of stuff to say, and no idea what to actually SAY.

I got 9.5 hours of sleep last night, and I feel like a million bucks.

I had some contractions…okay, lots of contractions the last couple of days that started behaving a little scary.  I tried not to get into my head about it, but I couldn’t get them to calm down.  Hot baths, epsom salts, lots of water and a ton of rest seemed to be the trick – chasing after a busy 20 month old proved to be a little too much this week.

I had a wonderful/amazing visit with Laura, the sweet friend that keeps Ronan for me while I’m working.  Sometimes it’s easy to forget how nice it is to have simple adult conversation with another human being, even when our kids are in the room being rowdy.

We appear to FINALLY be on the mend.  Ronan had a sinus infection, and he’s been on antibiotics for 5 days now.  YESTERDAY was the first day that we started to see some improvement.  Less coughing, no more green snot, and a little bit of an improvement in attitude.  I’m not gonna lie to ya, I’ve loved the last few days of sitting on the couch, snuggled together, watching movies… but I’m ready to get out of this place and DO STUFF.  Visit friends, play at the park before the good weather is gone, anything to get us out of this house!

Things are so up in the air right now, I don’t know for sure when they are going to settle down.  Next week is Thanksgiving(!) already, and I feel like I have a ton of time to get stuff done.  But really, I don’t.  I want to take a Christmas picture and send out cards, so I’m giving myself until December 1st to get that done.  We’ll see how it turns out.

In other news, I’m getting huge… and I’m okay with it.  I have to be honest with myself when I look in the mirror – 130lbs looks a whole lot better on me than 103.  I feel like I look younger, prettier, and less haggard.  I’m trying not to be too worried about how much weight I gain this time around (trying being the operative word there) because I know how much weight I lost nursing Ronan.  I don’t want to get that low again.

I am 27 weeks pregnant.  More than 2/3rds of the way to a new baby girl.  I’m excited.  I talk to her every day.  I have been doing a lot of visualization and mental planning for the labor/delivery, and I’m excited for that too.  Sometimes I feel like things are trying to wear me down, like I’m being drowned in the day to day… but life is good.

I am 27 weeks pregnant, and Ronan is in his final week of 20 months old.

Sleep = Judgement.

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As a mom, I have come to question why sleep equals good parenting.

Why do people so often meet a new baby and immediately ask, “Is he/she sleeping through the night yet?”  I can’t count the number of times I fielded that question before Ronan was two months old.  I didn’t even hope that he would be sleeping full nights at that point, I was surprised other people thought he should be.

See, for me, sleep is something kids need help to learn to do.  And parenting a child to sleep isn’t all that terrible.  Yeah, getting up at night really sucks, but what part of being a mom is about making MY life easier?

To get back to my point.  I hate the fact that so many people associate whether or not a child sleeps with the quality of parenting.  I want to take a stand here, because I have a beautiful, happy, healthy little boy.  He’s sweet, and funny, well behaved, smart, and growing like a weed.  By all accounts, he’s wonderful.  My friends love him, my family loves him, my sitter loves him… even when he was in daycare, they were constantly telling us what a good boy he is.

But.

He doesn’t sleep.  And therefore, my parenting skills are suspect.  I must be doing SOMETHING wrong, and so I am probably doing EVERYTHING wrong.

You know what makes me feel better?  The friends that I have that ALSO didn’t listen to convention that have three and four year olds that still wake in the night.  The parents that DID cry-it-out and still have trouble getting kids to sleep sometimes.  Sleep is not easy, and there is no quick fix it… not one that I’m willing to employ, anyways.

My problem, and all of my complaints about Ronan’s sleep have never had anything to do with the fact that he would wake at night.  It has always been about the WAY he would wake up, and how he seemed to be in such terrible pain.  Ronan has been on Prevacid for over a month now, and the night wakings that included screaming have stopped COMPLETELY.  Sure, he still wakes up.  But he wakes up, and rolls around a bit, and can be put back to sleep.  That is all I’ve ever wanted.

This blog is all disjointed and has no flow because I just got up from my two midnight shifts.  My brain hasn’t officially moved back into gear yet.  But really, here’s what I want to say:

If your baby sleeps through the night, it doesn’t make you an amazing parent.  I don’t think more highly of you simply because you get sleep.  I think you probably lie about the amount of sleep you get because you think you should.

If your baby does NOT sleep through the night, it doesn’t make you a horrible parent.  You shouldn’t have to feel like you need to lie about sleeping habits to impress people.