"Make sure you sleep while you can!"
I hear this haunting refrain more and more frequently these days. Most recently, it came from one of my coworkers, whose wife gave birth to their first child earlier in the year. He did not seem himself. His movements were somewhat jerky, and he seemed frayed around the edges. For a full 5 minutes, he told me how completely exhausted he was, and how there was no hope for me. Usually, my excitement allows me to shrug off any such concerns, but this guy actually started to get me worried. That was the point. He was trying to prepare me for impending bouts of sleep-deprivation.
Another one of my coworkers has a 7-year-old boy. Over the 4+ years that I've known this guy, he's often come in late, dishevelled and somewhat disoriented. Sometimes, he doesn't come in at all, and I hear that he's had to stay home for "family" reasons. His wife isn't much of a morning person, so he's responsible to get their son up, dressed and off to school. Sometimes, especially if someone in the house is sick, things fall apart. On one occasion, when he rolled into work just before lunch with a 3-day beard, he looked at me and he said,
"If you value your sanity, do not have children."
Then he collapsed into his chair. I suppose that was supposed to be a warning as well. I have always figured that the positive aspects of raising children must completely outweigh any of the inconveniences. I certainly hope that I'm right. Some of these guys make me a little nervous.
OUR SESAME SEED
In week 5 your baby is about the size of a sesame seed
5 comments:
You'll be fine. With all due respect to your coworker, any man who can be bested by one 7 year-old is not the one to listen to about parenting.
I completely agree, they must be a bunch of spineless wimps. My suggestion though is to watch "super nanny" or "nanny 911" and read happiest baby and happiest toddler on the block. I think they all are good at showing effective ways of keeping kids from running the house. No one is a perfect parent but like anything if you do your homework you can avoid a lot of problems down the road. A good example for me was Kindel & Trina R. They had a toddler before we had our first and she would go down at night with no fuss, and I mean NO fuss. These accomplishments are often dismissed with differences in children’s personalities... Nonsense! His second went down equally well. He shown me it was possible and repeatable. The same thing happens on the shows I mentioned. If you parent properly your children will seam like angles. The trick I really think is to put in the effort in the beginning, don’t take the easy road and wimp out and let your kids take control.
Sorry D, but I have to agree with your coworkers. I'm currently in the world of complete exhaustion - I haven't had a full nights sleep in 5 weeks. Someone once told me that a form of torture was to keep waking someone up before they've had their full REM cycle. This is the world of newborns. Yes, they're trainable, but it's hard work. I'll feel for you when you're in that stage, but I'll be so happy that I'll be out of it!!
I think you can have a decent life and raise children at the same time. There are times when sleep may be a bit of a rare commodity or when life gets a wee bit chaotic, but you can get through them by taking it all a step at a time. As two parents you work together and have the same strategy and goals in child rearing so that you support each other--and remember that you as parents are the ones in charge, not the kids. Things run much more smoothly that way. Enjoy the time and don't worry.
I must say that I haven't laughed so hard in a long time reading your blog on sleep deprivation. I'd have to agree with your co-workers but also realize that it doesn't last forever and you'll be able to laugh about it to, when it's over. Jon and I had many experiences with complete exhaustion. Our daughter had acid reflux which meant lots of crying, due to the acid in her thoart and lots and lots of vomiting, which led to many late nite, early morning clean ups. She also slept in our bed because I was worried she'd choke due to the excessive, random vomitting. I don't think I had REM sleep for a year when the AR started to improve and we moved her to her crib, finally! I had a friend say you know you have a newborn when you find the cereal in the fridge and the milk in the cupboard. I say you know you've reached the point of insanity when your newborn throws up next to you and after making sure she's okay you just turn the pillow over and go back to sleep! good thing newborn throw up doesn't smell. Anyway, the cute and wonderful things about children do really do make up for the difficulties so be excited about the good and learn to laugh about the bad. You will be amazed at the love you will feel for your baby, it's like nothing else in this world. We waited a long time for MK to come into our family, we are so thankful for her and we wouldn't change a thing about her! Take care, Jen Gilchirst
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