I Miss You, Sleep

If there is any advice I can give to a future mom or even a mom who has yet to be pregnant but plans on it in the near future – enjoy sleep! Enjoy endless unbothered sleep. Enjoy sleeping in and enjoy hitting that snooze button or better yet, don’t even set an alarm! As an almost 30 year old, I did my share of partying in my early 20s. All of which involved running on energy drinks and choosing to sleep maybe 3 hours max at times.

Key word here is choosing. I chose that lifestyle at the time and I knew what I was setting myself up for. Of course I knew that a baby meant my sleeping in was over but there is a whole other level of sleep deprivation that you know nothing about til you experience it. One night, you get to sleep for 3 hours consecutively. The next night, you are up every 45 minutes. You absolutely never know what to expect and at sleep regressions, you dream about those 2 consecutive hours of sleep!

For me, the worst is the just falling asleep and then having to wake up again when you barely closed your eyes. At times now, I barely remember how many times I’ve woken up or what time it is. The walk to our son’s bedroom and the walk back is a blur and I don’t even remember it! My mistake is always being locked into the monitor and waiting for him to fall asleep instead of just hitting the hay immediately.

We were so lucky that the first few months, he would sleep 9 or 10 hours without waking. Welp, that ended quickly! Of course, I wouldn’t change my life and have it any other way but boy oh boy do I miss sleep. Mostly I miss not walking around the whole day like a zombie and drinking buckets of coffee to play with the little guy!

So advice to you – sleep! Sleep before you get pregnant as I stared at the ceiling towards the end of my pregnancy since he would kick all night long and I can’t stand sleeping on my back! Get your sleep on because it’ll be another 18 years before you are best friends with your pillow again.

Growth Spurts, Leaps & Wonder Weeks

My son will be 30 weeks on Friday and a week and a half ago he became super clingy and impossible to do anything around. Don’t get me wrong, I already know I have a very attentive baby who demands that his needs are met immediately (will be discussed in a future blog) but these past weeks, he freaks out when being placed in his crib for a nap as if I’ll never come back. I knew he just went through Leap 5 and the next Leap isn’t til May but out of curiosity I popped into my Wonder Weeks app. What do you know? Week 29 & 30 include fussy and irritable behavior due to baby learning about distance!

Before I was pregnant or had Baby Viking, I had no clue about spurts leaps or Wonder Weeks. Of course, I heard about it in one of my baby groups! The book was written by a Dutch couple and outlines the weeks babies go through the first 20 months of life which include sleep regressions and periods of fussiness. It offers parents insights to understand what is going on with your baby’s new skills.

I do not own the book but I do have the app on my phone. It cost a mere $1.99 but so worth it to get a better understanding of why my baby is impossible or suddenly can’t sleep through the night. The weeks are based off due date but I added both to my app and quickly realized Baby Viking was following along with his birthdate. Every. Single. Time. that he is impossible, after a few days I log into the app and go OH! We are going through something! I was so skeptical at first and just downloaded it almost to say yeah okay this is bologna but nope, it has helped so much! Also, after every wonder week he develops a new skill and my jaw just drops how helpful it is.

This is just one thing out of the millions that I’ve learned in the last half year and hope this book or app can help you get a bit of understanding of your little one!

Ps. Leap 4 and 5 were definitely the WORST!