This is after a weekend where he woke me up THREE TIMES in one night and demanded a boob.
Not cool dude. You can get through the night without eating now, let's do it!
On that terrible night, I figured out that I had no consecutive period of sleep that lasted longer than 2.5 hours. My total sleep was 1.5 + 2.5 + 1.5 + .5 + 1 = 7 hours, which isn't BAD, but when you break it up like that and add in about a half hour of wakefulness in each break, it totally sucks. I was a walking zombie until I had three cups of coffee. Three!
Not only does he wake me up, he always seems to wake me up right in the middle of a dream. It's not that I mind being roused from my CRAZY INSANE dreams (as in Federline or Brad Pitt love - side note: why do I always love guys in my dreams who I hate in actual life? Maybe I'm suppressed?) it's that it is very physically and mentally disturbing to be woken up two and three times a night from a deep sleep.
In fact, this article from the National Institute of Mental Health states that sleep deprivation and lack of deep sleep and REM sleep (dream sleep) can over a long period of time (say, five months maybe??) lead to hallucinations and mood swings. Yikes! Also it says that "Extreme sleep deprivation can lead to a seemingly psychotic state of paranoia and hallucinations in otherwise healthy people."
Jeepers creepers.
So, because I have to wait until the middle of JUNE to get my evaluation from the mental health center (long story) and be able to get any kind of medication to treat my depression and anxiety and the accompanying sleep disturbances, we decided to remove one cause of my inability to sleep, namely DYLAN.
I love the boy, but he was waking me up and I was waking him up. It was worth the experiment to see if it would help either of us sleep better and more.
The results, conveniently, are IN!
Dylan fell asleep on his own (no car rides) at 8 pm last night. He slept undisturbed until 2:30ish in the morning. That's GREAT for him! Of course, that also means that I slept from about 9 pm clear through to 2:30 am - about 5.5 hours consecutive. Yay!
Then Elizabeth had a nightmare at 4:30ish and I woke up to fetch her from her room. She claimed to be scared of the clock. There is no clock in her room. I was puzzled, but tired. She came to sleep in our room. So that was another 1.5-ish hours of sleep in there. Dylan woke up whimpering again at around 5:15 am but I waited until 5:30 to get him, giving me another hour or so for a total of 8 non-consecutive hours of sleep. Not bad, but still not great. He also went back to sleep after that 5:30 feeding, that lucky kid.
Hopefully, putting Dylan in his own room will help me to cut out that 2 am feeding (and the midnight and the 4 am one too) and I'll get to sleep clear through to sunrise, one of these nights. One of these crazy old nights.
5 comments:
Elizabeth and I have a deal - I get up and handle Athena if she wakes up, she gets up with Marcus (since he is more dependent on her right now). It seems to work out OK for the most part.
I need to adjust the crib in the nursery for when we transition him in there.
On a final note, I am happy to say that Athena has never slept in our bed. It's so nice. She tosses and turns anyway - no one would get any sleep.
Ditto. Elizabeth is a tosser, turner, kicker.
However, Bob sleeps the sleep of the dead, and he is a jerk if he gets woken up, so I just let him sleep.
OK, now I am worried that once baby gets here the lack of sleep will turn me into a psychotic paranoid maniac! What exciting things I have to look forward to. Kevin also sleeps the sleep of the dead...he better get ready for THAT to change. We're gonna start out with baby in the crib in his room right away...see how that will go.
Kevin's a good egg. He'll pitch in.
You'll have it much easier Mer because you will only have ONE baby and thus you can actually sleep when *HE* sleeps (is it a boy? is it? Tell me! I won't tell anyone!)
And you better sleep when that baby sleeps, else moms like me with two kids and no opportunity to nap, will rise up against you. Fo' reals.
OK will do-totally will nap when baby does. Sounds like it is my only chance! My bet and doc's bet is on baby boy, but there is still a slight chance the doc is wrong on that...baby lundy is kinda shy when it comes to showing the goods. Not sure where "he" got that! :)
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