Sleep when baby sleeps...Debunked

I don’t think I am ever going to sleep again.  I mean in a nice deep sleep where both eyes are closed and you are not worried about your children not breathing, or sounds that go “bump” in the night.  I think that sleep ship has since sailed.  If I get an uninterrupted 4 hours, I consider it “rested.”  My mother-in-law said it pretty good “you just get used to feeling crappy” and it is true.  I have perpetual sleep circles under my eyes, I have lost some of my ridiculous memory mojo and I find myself fairly out of it most days. 

I think back to when Hallie was first born.  She was a terrible sleeper for the first 6 months.  She would nap during the day and at great lengths.  However, to get this child to sleep at night took half a year.  When she finally made it to 180 days and change…we hit a magic moment…12 hours of sleep a night along with two three-hour long naps during the day.  I felt like I had won the lottery.  The problem was, life had stacked up items for me to do during those initial six months and catching up on sleep was simply not an option. 

I wish I could say that it got “easier.”  F the people who say to “sleep when baby sleeps” when you have TWO babies under two.  They can kiss my butt.  Also, to those people who magically had babies sleeping through the night at 2 weeks…I say “bullshit” to you.  And, it is actually true, I don’t want to know about it.  I haven’t slept more then 6 hours at a time since Hayes was born and he is rapidly approaching 6 months.  I look like hell.  I most certainly feel like hell.  I joke that when they are 18 I may actually sleep through the night, but then I remember when my mom would call and be wide awake while I was at college because she couldn’t sleep, as she was worried about me.  So, sleep is a luxury. 

Hayes is a possum.  He doesn’t nap more then 20 minutes at a time, and he must be held or in a swing.  I am writing this as I experiment with putting him down in his crib but he is crying.  I am honestly hoping he will cry himself to sleep…guilty as charged.  At night, I think the most he has slept at one time is 6 or 7 hours which; was great…but those nights I was up with Hallie because she had a nightmare or was sick. 

I sometimes wonder if I would kick-ass at a resistance type training since half of it is psychological terror due to lack of sleep.  I bet I could skate circles around some of those people.  I have hallucinated once with lack of sleep…two weeks after Hallie was born. I swear I felt myself levitating over my actual body at one point and my head felt all fuzzy. 

In any event…those of you pregnant and wanting to know the worst thing about having a baby…it is lack of sleep.  Hands down.  You will feel awful.  You will be angry and moody and not your normal self.  It sucks.  People never told me how awful it was and I wish they would have.  I won’t sugar coat it for my friends.  Sleep as much as you can now before you have a baby.  Stay in bed till noon if you can.  Take naps when the sun is out.  Just sleep like it is a luxury, because frankly, it is.

That is all.