How early is too early?

Posted on June 4, 2008

I was trying to come up with some insightful content for this post. At this point, though, I am so sleep deprived that I can’t come up with ANYTHING! I swear, there was definitely supposed to be a point where I was going to be able to get some sleep. I had the baby, and was aware that there was going to be a chunkof time where I didn’t get any sleep, so it wasn’t like I wasn’t expecting some sleep deprivation. But we are talking TWO YEARS now.

Chloe has now decided that she is going to get up at itty bitty hours of the morning. By that I mean between 4:00 and 5:30 am. And I am talking UP. She’s ready to eat her breakfast and start playing. I have begged and pleaded with her, I have tried to convince her that 5:00 am is too early to get up. And on occasion, she has gone back to bed for 15 to 20 minutes. Then she is up again. All I have to say, is in all of this don’t pity me, pity John. Because when I get up that early I am MEAN. Not just crabby, and whiny, but MEAN. The first couple of mornings I might have just been whiny. The third morning I snapped at him and then complained because I was the only one waking up (waking him up in the process). The fourth morning, I forced him to get out of bed to get up with her. Needless to say, now we are both mean. Oh, and so is Chloe. She is completely melting down at 11:00am and going down for a nap way earlier than I would like her to. (Especially since almost all of our schedule activities like Gymboree and our Mom’s Club play group last until 12:00 or later and I am the parent carrying the kicking and screaming child out of the place.)

The other problem that I have with her sleep patterns is that they are so unbelievably inconsistent. She’ll sleep really well for a week, and then she’ll wake up every night at 3:00 am for a week, but sleep in until 7. Then she’ll sleep the whole night, and get up at 5:00.

The erratic sleep is effecting my overall mental health. I am having a terribly time getting and staying motivated to do anything around the house or outside of the house. I am having a difficult time remembering things, keeping track of objects and dates. I have even gained ten pounds back because I have had a hard time coming up with the energy to exercise.

It has also effected my ability to parent. The first two hours that I am up with Chloe are spent with me trying to catch some extra sleep on the sofa while she watches a movie. And even after that, I used to have a plan of what we were going to do every day and it wasn’t structured but it was definitely focused on learning certain skills. I have almost completely given up on that, and we spend most of the mornings before her nap now just playing whatever game she invents in the moment (which I am sure benefits her also, but there are definitely times when I can tell she is just bored.) That isn’t even taking into consideration my patience level. I am shorter with her, I have a harder time dealing with her tantrums and her demanding nature.

I hate that I have moments when I have to remind myself, “I signed up for this.” When it comes right down to it, I was the one who wanted a child. John was okay with it, don’t get me wrong, but it was really all about what i wanted. And I LOVE my kid. She is funny, smart, sweet, cuddly and unbelievably entertaining. But every morning at 5 am, I say to myself, “I’m not cut out for this.” And when she wants me to entertain her that early in the morning, I want to tell her, “Go play by yourself for awhile.” It makes me so sad that she has added to her vocabulary, “Mommy’s tired,” and “Wake up, Mommy.” I tell myself every morning that its going to be different. But, I just cannot function that early in the morning.

So, in the essence of solving the problem, not just complaining about it, John and I foiled her windows with the idea that when we get half a moment to breath we’ll buy black out curtains for her room, on the chance its the sun waking her up. And I have now permanently moved her bedtime to 8 pm. So far, the only effects have been she took a four hour nap yesterday (I think because it was so dark in her room) and she got up at 6 am this morning (6 is SOOO much better than 4!)

I have to admit that I am TERRIFIED that she is just going to be an erratic sleeper and I am basically screwed until she is old enough to take care of herself in the morning. I am also worried about adding another kid into the mix. John and I have discussed it, but with his current job situation and the constraints of our house, it might be awhile. And now, I am adding to that list that it would be nice to have a solid period of time where I can catch some zzzzz’s before starting this all over again.