Crash and Burn
Aug. 12th, 2007 01:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
judecorpI 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.
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.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-14 08:39 am (UTC)Little Mister has always slept through Seth's crying and she is super-grumpy to wake up too. I felt pretty resentful for quite a while there, but now I let her sleep through as long as she gets up with him in the morning and I can go back to bed for another hours sleep. She knows she can't get grumpy about that because I'm doing the night shift every night!
I promise you things will get better soon when you start to get 4 hour stretches of sleep. I know it doesn't seem like much difference between 3 and 4 hours, but it's huge trust me. You will nearly feel like a normal human being again!
One more piece of ass-vice - apparently babies who get lots of sunlight during the day make the change-over better. Maybe taking Gus for walks in the pram in the afternoon will help her get her day/night thing right and will help you burn off that extra adrenaline so you sleep better too.
Thinking of you girl!
xxx Mermaidgrrrl