Crash and Burn

[judecorp]

I think all of the adrenaline and hormonal power of pregnancy and birth has finally completely petered out. Either that, or three weeks of in-home visitors has taken its toll. All I know is that I am /exhausted/. Six weeks (today!) of getting about four hours (or less) of sleep per day has burned me out. I can't really function, and feel totally glazed and glassy.

I knew this was happening when the baby, by some miracle, fell asleep around 11:15 one night and woke up at 3am to eat. That's almost five hours. And what happened? When she woke me up, I was /awake for the day/. I couldn't go back to sleep, because I haven't gotten that much sleep in forever. Scary.

The baby has decided that all day is for sleeping and all night is for screaming to wake the living dead. Jen sleeps through it unless I wake her, and it's difficult to wake her and also makes me feel bad and makes me grumpy at the same time. So mostly I sit up like a zombie trying to nurse and/or rock a baby, twitching every so often because my body wants to drift off, and worry frantically about actually falling asleep unintentionally and dropping the baby. It's awful.

I know the solution should be "sleep all day, then, if the kid is sleeping all day," but my internal clock will not let me sleep during the daytime hours. I just can't. I try. It doesn't work. And then, the sky starts to darken, I begin yawning, and it's Play Time for Baby Girl.

I am losing my mind.

Comments

[sillypilgrim.livejournal.com]

Oh man. This is scary to me... although right now I'm a pretty good napper. Except when something exciting is going on and then I can't sleep day or night.

My husband is a night owl, though.... I wonder if he would wake up and latch the kid onto me while I'm sleeping. Do you think that would work out?

[kathrynt.livejournal.com]

In my experience, by the time the baby has enough head control to be able to be latched by someone else, it's possible just to sort of nudge the nipple into the kid's mouth and go back to sleep. I don't even wake up enough to remember doing it now.

[kitchenwitch.livejournal.com]

Haha. I woke up the other night and my husband was manipulating my nipple to get it into the baby's mouth. It turned out he had been "nursing" her for ten minutes before I noticed.