Tonight was a good sleep night, which is why I have a moment to write a blog post. But the past couple nights have been slightly less than ideal.
There’s not a parent alive who doesn’t ask new parents, “How is your sleep?” or “How is your child sleeping?” and there’s a reason for this. Sleep is a roller-coaster. You think you have an angel when it comes to nighttime routines and one day he proves you wrong. Then he does it for a few nights in a row and you think you’re going to go slightly loopy from exhaustion…and he gives you a good night to reset you.
Without going into too much detail, let’s just say that he didn’t follow established routines. We’ve been fairly successful with our new routine in which he gets lots of independent sleep time starting at 6:30. But new routines take a while to stick, babies are constantly changing (teething time is setting in or has set in!), and apparently at this age it’s not uncommon for him to have out-of-whackness in his sleep schedule. Well that’s Cole in a nutshell… we took a video of his overtired goofiness, which I’ll try to post here in an update.
The rest of this is more about me.
Alex does the bulk of the soothing and calming, as you can imagine if you know the two of us… plus, she’s armed with boobies full of milk which help in the pacifying situations when he’s finally ready for them. But that doesn’t mean I intentionally slack off or anything. So I’m doing the mei tei (baby carrier) thing, I’m doing the bouncing thing, I sing “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm” and “Lady is a Tramp” plus a handful of lullabies to him. It’s tiring. After two nights of doing my best to help, while trying to get some “me” time, I myself am not keeping the best hours. At some point last night I managed to get some of that precious “me” time after my lovely wife and son had gone to bed.
So, time passes and I’m ready to join them. I’m already so nervous about waking the finally-sleeping baby that I barely crawl under the covers. Don’t want to pull my fair share of those covers over to my side, because pulling the bedding might wake the baby (though it’s never been a problem before, I was a bit paranoid last night). Somehow mange to inch the blankets over with the passing of time and to almost fall asleep. Except Sir Kicksalot “floofs” the blanket up with his feet, exposing me once again to the cold. Now I’m fully awake (groggy, but awake) again. He’s not awake, just moving in his sleep… so I start to drift off again. “Floof!” cold air. Drift. “Floof!” cold air. Grab a pillow (the wrong one, actually) and head downstairs to the basement couch.
I’m groggy, but I’m agitated. I mostly just want to sleep. I want to sleep more than I wanted Cole to sleep, and that’s a LOT. I don’t even take notice that a full duvet is downstairs with me, instead slipping under a much-undersized thin cotton blanket draped over the back of the couch. I shiver away until the blanket becomes just warm enough for me to feel sleepy. But as I’m dozing off, my feet poke out from the damn thing. I’m not phobic about exposed feet or anything, but I’m so on-edge that it wakes me up. Try again, same thing. STUPID COLD EXPOSED FEET, HOW DARE YOU? GARRR! Wake up slightly and try to force myself to plan a next move… how am I supposed to get comfy and cozy?
That’s when I see the duvet out of the corner of one squinty eye, illuminated by the LEDs of the cable box! BUT, of course I’ve worked so hard to get the flimsy cotton &$!# thing warmed up that I’ll be damned if I let go of that heat! Reach out for the duvet (it was within reaching distance from my lying-down position) throw it over me AND the cotton thing. But somehow, in my twisted chaotic dark haze, I can’t get my body fully under the thing. My feet won’t get under, it won’t wrap around my shoulders… something is just wrong, wrong, WRONG! GAH! Bolt upright, flinging the duvet to the farthest reaches of the room, and whip the flimsy cotton piece of $#!+ to the ground. Rage…taking…over…must…sleep….!
After taking a few breaths, I realize I must simply “reset” the duvet properly, in the right direction, allowing it to fold over me neatly and completely. Which I do. And I drift off into a sleep as blissful as possible on a 3-section semi-uncomfortable couch, with a folded-over duvet and an overly-large pillow making my neck strain.
I was so thankful for the hours of sleep that I got that I didn’t even get mad at the dogs when their tapping little claws woke me up 4 hours later.
Holler if you can relate. 
(Critics of co-sleeping, don’t get all self-righteous on me… nobody said it had to be perfect every single night)
Even though I don’t have a baby, I can relate. I have a 20 lb cat that shares the bed and prefers the ‘middle’ of my side, and a hubby that steals the blankets. Most of you will say ‘kick the cat out.’ Not so easy – cats do not take direction well. If I manage to slide Tashi off the bed, she jumps right back up. If she senses that I’m awake, she’ll crawl on my chest, or up on my pillow to meow and give me kisses. I kick her off again, and she’s back up as soon as I’ve almost fallen asleep. If you put her out of the room and close the door, she’ll scratch the door until you get annoyed and let her back in. Then she’s right back up on the bed. I wouldn’t mind so much if she slept at the end or on Craig’s side of the bed. LOL! As for blankie stealing hubby, he wraps himself in the blanket and then flips over a couple times until everything is on his side of the bed. I wake up in the middle of the night freezing my arse off and twisted in an awkward position around the cat. Between the two of them, it’s nearly impossible to get a good night sleep.
Heheheh, those pesky cats and significant others….!
Come to think of it, I didn’t even mention Balu, who was not a pain the night before. But last night, he jumps up in bed at 3am, and I promptly shoved him back off. Not a graceful dog, that one, so he kind of thudded to the ground…which may have contributed to Cole waking up yet again.
After posting this, Cole turned out to not leave me with a great night again. To make a long story short, I woke up with him at 4am or so, and let him be awake (on his play mat, etc) until he was tired again.
I was agitated at first, but when the little cutie was grinning up at me from that play mat, I couldn’t help smiling back. I think we’re biologically engineered to melt like that for our children just so that we don’t get too upset with them.
Juice and I are also co-sleepers! I also have bought another bed for those nights when it doesn’t work out…Cameron slept for about a half hour Saturday, so I feel your pain and your frustration. It will end eventually (although when it did with Finnegan I missed having him in the bed). Peace
Co-sleepers of the world unite.
Having another bed isn’t a bad idea. We have a futon but I couldn’t be arsed switching it to bed mode. Besides that, it’s always covered in Moby hair since that’s his main place to sleep during the day. I’m not allergic or anything, but that dog hair can be a hassle.
I’m sure I’ll miss having Cole in bed, too. Last night, Alex almost pulled a role-reversal, letting out a loud grunt in her sleep that almost pulled the little guy out of his reverie. Almost, but not quite!
First and foremost, sleep will come. Our little one grew up WAY too fast, and now it’s hard to get her to snuggle at all (which for two people who often felt over-cuddled is a funny reversal). As soon as you seem to make it work and WANT them close to you all the time, they’re big enough to want space. It’s truly unfair. So my first thing would be: although it seems neverending now, it honestly flies by too fast and these days of closeness are numbered.
Secondly, I found that while we were co-sleeping in the first few months, we could get into bed super rustly and loud, as long as she was able to cuddle back to sleep really quickly. She would rouse, and then see mom and dad and find a little nook and nestle herself back to sleep. Mind you, we only made it to 3 months so you’re more vetran co-sleepers now than we ever were….although we still nap together, nice way to recharge all our unemployed batteries!
Much more to say but all just anecdotal relating to your woes! Hang in there and rest assured you’re brilliant parents and that’s the most important thing….we should do dinner soon!
xo N