Maybe I already do? I love co-sleeping and wouldn’t change a thing, but sometimes it’s pretty hard. Ryan makes noises, he tosses and turns, he farts. All things wake me up.. the slightest whimper and I’m awake (but a level 4 earthquake? nope, slept right though that). And lately, if you follow me on twitter you already know, we’ve been having issues. Ryan takes naps during the day pretty well, but at night? AH! He fights sleep, he cries as soon as I walk out of the room, he ever wakes up crying randomly when I’m right next to him! He goes to bed between 7 and 8pm and I just can’t go to bed that early with him, I have things to do! But the past few nights… I haven’t really had a choice.
I walked into work on Friday (30 minutes late – bad night, bad morning) and started sobbing, from pure exhaustion and stress. So I went home. Yesterday Steve took Ryan over to his parents’ house all morning so that I could have some me-time and get stuff done. It helped a TON. I’m really hoping this no-sleep thing or this can’t-sleep-without-mama thing is just a phase… maybe because he’s learning to crawl? Babies seem to have sleep problems during a huge developmental change. Or maybe he isn’t feeling well? Either way.… I NEED SLEEP!
And then I see this article in my inbox today: Parents of newborns miss out on SIX MONTHS worth of sleep in their child’s first two years
How’s that for birth control?
The article says most get less than 4 hours of sleep a night, which can lead to mood swings and depression. Ummmm, yea that sounds about right! And the constant exhaustion can create irritable couples who do nothing but argue, which can be detrimental to the relationship. Thankfully, I don’t think Steve and I have that problem. Yea I think I’M more cranky than usual, but Steve is just… awesome. He’s so understanding and relaxed and patient. Plus, I think it might actually help that we work opposite shifts and don’t see each other much except for weekends. There’s no TIME to argue! Haha. OR that I’m the one co-sleeping with Ryan so I’m the one whose sleep gets interrupted constantly, whereas Steve sleeps solidly (even if it is only for 5 hours).
Experts suggest that adults need at least 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep a night, but it varies with some needing 8 or some needing only 3. I believe I belong to the 8-hour group and there is no way I’m getting that. I’d say I’m “in bed” for 6 – 7 hours a night, but I’m constantly awoken by Ryan… so the study is probably pretty accurate in that I actually get about 4 hours.
And Ryan is 7 months old? 4 hours of sleep a night for 7 months? No wonder I’m cranky. I get frustrated so much more easily than ever before. Usually on the weekends, Steve will take Ryan one morning and let me sleep in (yes, sleeping till 8:30am is SLEEPING IN)!
The study says two-thirds of moms and dads get fewer than 4 hours of sleep a night. Of those, 12% get fewer that 2.5 hours!! AH! I think I’d be DEAD!
So the 6 month loss of sleep in your baby’s first 2 years of life? That’s based on an average of getting 5 hours of sleep a night (for a total of 3,650 hours over 2 years), but if you’re only getting the 4 hours suggested (for a total of 2,738 hours over 2 years), that difference is 6months worth of time. CRAZY.
*A third of new parents say they argue at least 5 times a week
*A quarter of mothers say they suffer from mood swings and depression
*A fifth say they are often irritated by their partner just from being so exhausted
*1 in 20 couples said they separated due to exhaustion
And apparently napping and getting an hour of sleep here and there doesn’t help. It doesn’t add to your “basal sleep.” I’d still say nap when you can! Sleep when your baby sleeps. Because I think it does help… but I guess in the long run, this article is saying you need to get 5 uninterrupted hours of sleep a night. HOW?!
How many hours of sleep do you think you get a night? Do you think it has affected your mood? Your relationship? Your job???
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It’s absolutely affecting me AND my marriage. I get SO SO SO mad at Christopher because he won’t take the baby some mornings. I get that he works, but he gets a day off. I don’t. And holy shit I’d love to sleep until 8:30 uninterrupted. 1 or 2 hours, that’s all I’m freaking asking, but he pulls the “I’m tired” card when HE chose to be up until 5am with his friends. Jerk face.
Anyways, I am absolutely one of the 8 hours of sleep people too. I always have been. I’m adjusted to this right now though. And like I told you before, Austin went through that for a couple of weeks. I was going to bed at 7 – 8 oclock for a week or two because he would NOT stay asleep. I was going in there 5 times in an hour or two to get him back to sleep and I was going INSANE. I will say that it passed. He’s good now. And he sleeps better when he is EXHAUSTED, and my nieces were in this week so that’s probably why. Now that they’re gone it’ll probably turn into hell again…
BUT to help the remaining piece of my sanity to stick around I just remind myself that Austin is the only baby I will have and he’ll only want to snuggle with me for a short short time and he will grow up before I blink my eyes and I REFUSE to regret letting ANYTHING go by. I am making myself CHERISH every SECOND he cries to cuddle and snuggle. Yes it’s frustrating sometimes, but my blog or TV or Twitter or whatever will just have to wait. They aren’t as important as Austin. I want to cry just thinking about all the times I’ve been frustrated that he wants me and I’ve rushed him to sleep to get back to something else meaningless.
And I totally think that this could be because of milestones. He’s way too busy thinking about crawling and probably a little scared. Change is scary, even good change. He may be feeling insecure and a little scared. That may be why he’s waking up and crying a lot.
As for the giveaway blog thing you were asking about (I’m WAYYYYY too lazy to open my email)… I left Baby Bumble B to be reviews with a link to the main blog. If people want to read what I have to say, they’ll come over. And I make sure I list all sponsors on BOTH blogs and I announce reviews and giveaways on P&P so that P&P readers that didn’t come from BBB know to check it out. I give stats on both blogs to PR peeps and say “your product will reach all these readers” as if they were two separate groups, not probably 75% same people (does that make sense?). Kinda tricky, but whatev, I’m not lying.
I now have way more hits on P&P than on BBB, but they ARE aware of the reviews/giveaways. I know Jennifer made a comment that a separate r/g blog is like having the Oprah show and Oprah commercial show, but I think it’s more like OnDemand cable! You get the show, and there is a short commercial instead of 11 minutes total of commercial. The reader is aware of your review/giveaway and can check it out if they would like, but it isn’t being shoved down their throat.
[Reply]
babydickey Reply:
August 1st, 2010 at 9:16 am
I totally agree… I need to (and I do try to) stop and tell myself that Ryan needs me. My blog and twitter and whatever else doesn’t. I told myself that last night — ok, just breathe and don’t get frustrated and realize THIS is what I need to be doing… being with Ryan. And it helped a ton, I don’t think I got frustrated at all, even though he was still waking up every 20 minutes and I kept having to run in there. I’m with ya momma! When I think back to how frustrated I’ve been, or how upset, I think about — what if Ryan didn’t feel well? or was scared like you said? And then I feel sooo bad. He’s just a little baby! I can handle going to bed at 8pm for awhile, for him. Thanks for sharing
Heyyy LOVE the idea of handing out both the stats, ha! I’ll tell my sponsors too that it’s like OnDemand cable, lolol. Thanks for the tips
[Reply]
Katie Reply:
August 1st, 2010 at 10:55 am
I don’t mean for you to look back and feel guilty
Just look at the present and future. The past has happened, and you learned from it. It’s just a good way to help you cope, not to make you feel bad 
And glad you liked the OnDemand analogy. I made it up while I was typing the comment hehe
[Reply]
I can completely empathize. Elise is going through a “phase” right now as well. I think it’s a combo of teething and a growth spurt and I’m up every hour to two hours every other night. I’m going crazy. One night this week, she slept through the night and it was like a GODSEND.Have you thought of starting Ryan on solids? Sometimes feeding a solid meal before bed really helps keep him full. Increased crankiness is a “sign” they may be ready to start eating.
I hope you can catch a break soon. It must be so hard especially because you go to work.
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Hey. Just a thought and please don’t take this as me judging at all because I well know that mommy knows best. But maybe Ryan is waking more at night because he’s hungry and is ready for more than milk. When I was doing my research for when to start foods, I read that one of the cues is waking more at night. Let me know if you want to see the article and I’ll see if I can find it. By the way, my son is 2 days younger than yours, I breastfeed and co-sleep and started introducing solids at 6 months. He still wakes at night but does noriceably better when he’s had some solids. Especially avocado!!
[Reply]
babydickey Reply:
August 1st, 2010 at 7:59 pm
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Yea he’s a pistol…lol… awe… well at least you have two sets of grandparents that will help you out too
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[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by KeepEmCookin, Baby Dickey. Baby Dickey said: are you having #sleep issues with your little one? me too. read about this study: http://bit.ly/bIJ9iL — you’re losing 6 MONTHS of sleep! […]