The last couple of weeks have been slightly strange. Ok, not strange. More like, bloody exhausting. A fresh wave of sleepless nights is visiting our household which I think I owe to the lovely age of “teething” we now seem to have entered. Coupled with the transition of getting the baby to sleep in his cot rather than the (3rd borrowed) basket that he has now grown out of, it has been tiring to say the least. It felt like I had a new-born again and, unfortunately, unlike the first lot of sleepless nights which I got through probably just on sheer baby euphoria, on this second wave I felt like I was starting to lose my patience a bit and go bonkers. Slowly.
Baby boy is now 6 months old and doesn’t sleep through yet. I know this is normal for a lot of babies so I’m not really worried and have become used to 1- 2 wake ups a night. This particular wave of sleepless nights though seemed to come from the depths of sleepless nights hell and meant I was regularly waking up about 4 times a night to provide feeds, cuddles, transfers back to cot, waiting at base of cot, waiting outside baby’s bedroom door, more feeds, cuddles, and so forth.
After about day 3 of sleepless hell, the lack of sleep was causing me to become a grumpy, stomping stroppy 5 year old type mooching about the house, trying hard to hold onto lunch dates / inkling of a social life / seeing other adults before 6pm (when the OH gets home from work). In turn, my moods were swinging from utterly weepy to utterly uber shouty bitch. Of course all of which was being directed to the Dear Husband. (“What do you mean you’re going to football / Do you never think maybe *I* might want to have a social life too??”). The OHs reaction to all of this is usually stunned silence or “don’t cry, calm down”. I’m not sure anyones told him that the only response to that is “What?! Am I not calm!??. I am calm! Dont tell me to calm down..!!” etc. On one particularly bad day, post bad night, I was meant to drive to a friend’s house about 15 minutes away and all I could think about was how tired I was. So after some huffing and puffing I eventually wailed that I was “sooo tired!”
OH: “Why don’t you have a nap then?”
Me: “Because I want to go oooout!”
OH: “Oh, I thought you were tired?”
Me: “I want to do boooooth!”
OH “Shall I drive you?”
Me: “Nooo, its meant to be a girlie day”….[Insert more weepy whining here]
(Yes, there is something about lack of sleep that brings out the whining a bit extremely).
After about Day 8 of sleepless nights hell, the “teething” pain seemed to subside without any kind of visible result. Although i’ve realised that most unknown pains or cause for crankiness are now always classed as “must be teething”. This week Baby Boy is also taking to the cot which is a massive relief. Not sure where we would have found yet another basket for him to sleep in that was actually big enough and wide enough for his little river-dance-in-his-sleep legs. We back to the “normal” amount of wake ups a night. This week we (umm.. *I*) have had no tantrums. So far. But its Thursday already. That’s definitely good!
Long live 1 – 2 wake ups a night (for now. Sleeping through is very good too. Just for info).
