Baby Blog

My baby boy is an insomniac. At 18 months you would think all the running, climbing, jumping and mischief making would wear him out and he would sleep through the night. Yeah right. My little guy has gotten into the habit of sleeping for a few hours then informing me his nap is done and he wants up. The lack of sleep is easier to handle these days. I had so much practice when he was a newborn.

Those first few weeks after you bring home baby are a bit of a blur. Finally glad to be out of the hospital so you can really start the parenting process, all the details are lost in a sea of waking exhaustion. You don’t think you could possibly be any more tired than you are at that moment. Then the next day comes, the lack of sleep increases and somehow you are still functioning.

Parenting is about lack of sleep or at least a lot less sleep than you ever got before children. You learn to function on three or four hours a night where before the bundle of joy came into your life you were one of those folks that like to say: “I gotta get my eight.”

Say goodbye to that forever I’m afraid.

Even if your baby isn’t a screaming, hungry, confused newborn or a ‘doesn’t want to miss a thing’ 18 month old, sleep is forever altered. I’m told by parents with older kids that as your child grows one source of sleep deprivation is simply replaced with another and you probably won’t get another good night until they are off and married having children of their own.

And by then of course, you won’t need much sleep.

Well I’m off to get my fourth coffee of the day and hope I can make it until the next round of sleep.

But of course I can, I’m a parent.