I forgot ....

I forgot about the realities of life with a newborn. I forgot how it feels to function on minimal sleep, how it feels to never sleep for more than a few hours at a time, how tired you start to feel after the high of having a baby comes down!
My first never slept. It was hell honestly. And not only did she not sleep, but she cried. And cried. And cried. And cried. And if she wasn't crying, she was eating. And I didn't sleep much and neither did she. Funnily enough, at the age of 6 she still doens't sleep that much or that well. I think it's just her and she will be one of those adults that sleeps 6 hours a night and feels great (my dh's dad is the same way - I think it's genetic).
It was hard to have a baby that didn't sleep. I can remember holding her in the rocking chair and she would be crying and I would be crying. But, she was our only one, nad my dh and I lived with my parents so when I was feeling really desperate all I had to do was walk up a flight of stairs and call for my mom!
Then 3 years later I had number 2. I was nervous about it. How would I deal with an infant and a 3 year old and not sleep a lot. My second daughter was her sisters complete opposite. She loved sleep - hey, she still does at the ripe old age of 3! She was sleeping like 8-10 hour stretches by 3 months old. Even before then she just basically slept, woke, ate, fell back asleep. She was one of those babies that you could forget was in the room. She did like to be cuddled, so she lived in a sling a lot, but she slept, and at night she even slept in a pack and play until she was about 9 months old and transitioned to the crib, no problem - if it was a place she could lay, she was happy. Heck, she wouldn't have minded if we put her on the floor honestly LOL! I think she was also about 3 months old when she stayed awake for more than 20/30 minutes!
And now to baby number 3. The entire time I was pregnant with him I wished he would be the perfect mix of his big sisters ... sleeping at night, but having some awake periods during the day. Well, I did get what I asked for, just not the way I wanted it. He is a mix of his sisters. The problem is he stays awake a lot like my first, but he's pretty content like my second as long as he is close and cuddled. Which, it's nice to not have a screaming child, but it gets hard to stay awake until 2, 3, 4 am or sometimes not even getting to sleep at night. And the first night it's okay. It's even okay the second night, but then it starts to add up. I had about 12 of those nights in a row with him. And I thought I was going to snap honestly. Don't get me wrong, I love the little guy, but I needed some sleep. So this weekend dh had him at night. I pumped milk for them and let them have fun.
The first night was not fun for dh! Little man stayed awake until 2ish, was fussy (becuase dh did not want to cuddle him, he wanted him to sleep LOL!) and then he woke up lots of times to eat. I almost felt bad on Saturday for them, but not quite! And so again, Saturday night was dh's turn to take darling boy. And at 10pm, he went to sleep. Then a few hours later he woke to eat, but fell back asleep and he proceeded to do that until about 8:30. Oh sure, decide to sleep when it's daddy's turn to take you! LOL!
But then he did it again last night for me (although 3 year old was sick so I still didn't get a lot of sleep!). And I'm crossing my fingers for a repeat performance tonight. I will be so thrilled if we can get sleep tonight! The joy of 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep ... it's more precious than gold these days!!

On another note, my boy had his one month check-up last week on wednesday. The little piggy was 11 pounds 4 ounces. I can't beleive it! So yes, he's eating quite well right now! =)
Okay, off to try to get some sleep as long as he will let me! LOL!