You'll Sleep When You Die.

This is pretty much just a continuation of the last post.  Because I guess I'm in a complain-y mood.  We'll just call this blog post a really glorified rant.

People say that a lot - You'll Sleep When You Die.  Well, I actually hope that isn't the truth, because I think God has greater things in store than to sleep in the ground, but okay.  Mostly it just drives me crazy when people say that.  I just want to be like, NO!  No, I won't sleep when I die, because I'll probably have lots of little sleepless babies in heaven to take care of, too, because that's my luck.  And besides, how does that help me now?  Is it supposed to be a comforting thought that, say I hopefully live to, oh, 70, I still have 42 years of sleeplessness ahead of me?!

I was blessed with two awesome children and for that, I truly am thankful.  I feel the need to preface what I'm about to say with that, because I'm in a bad mood and the following isn't exactly pretty.  I blame it on no sleep.

I didn't get good sleepers.  I didn't even get kind of bad sleepers.  I got horrible sleepers.  Honestly, when someone brags about their 6 week old sleeping for seven straight hours for weeks on end, I want to claw my eyeballs out.  I want to scream WHY CAN'T I HAVE A CHILD WHO KNOWS HOW TO SLEEP?!  Because my almost three year old?  He still wakes up sometimes as many as five times a night.

My eight month old was up nine times last night.  I'm sick, because that's what this family knows how to do in the winter.  We're really good at that.  You might even call it a talent, how easily we can just swap germs around and pass sicknesses on for weeks between family members.


Three years ago, I could get sick, sleep a lot for a few days and that would be that.  Once you become a mom, you don't get that luxury.  If your baby is up and clawing at the side of her pack and play and snorting and crying because she's hungry and wants to eat nine times in a night, despite running a fever and feeling like you might die, you have to get up and feed her.  You have no choice.

That's one of those parts of motherhood I wasn't prepared for.  I wasn't being completely unrealistic - I did expect a lack of sleep in the first few months.  What newborn sleeps through the night?  But no one - NO ONE - warned me that I wouldn't sleep for three years straight.  No one mentioned that some children just don't sleep well at 6 months, 12 months, 18 months, 2 years, 2.5 years....

I really hoped that our second might sleep better than our first, but even though I didn't think it was possible, she's a much worse sleeper.  She cat naps fifteen to twenty minutes at a time, she wakes up at least three times a night but some days in the neighborhood of 7 to 10, she wakes up early.  I suppose I should thank Ben for taking two hour naps and sleeping in until 8 or 9 most mornings when he was a baby.  He woke up a lot during the night, but these days I'd give anything to have that kind of sleeper again.

Two nights ago, I got less than one hour of sleep.  In an entire night.  Both children were having awful nights and my husband was sick.  So of course I woke up sick yesterday and of course I'm sicker today, after being up nine times last night.  How is a body supposed to recuperate without sleep?

I think there should be a nanny service that operates exclusively for sick moms.  We can just hire them for one or two evenings/early mornings so that we can sleep through the night, sleep in until 9:00 a.m. and wake up to happy, fed, clean kids.

Wouldn't that be a dream?!