for fear I may jinx it, but I feel like I need to record this historic event in the life of me and my little boy so that I may refer to it in the future to reassure myself that my child, indeed, does have the capacity to sleep for more than 5 hours straight. KENDALL SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT LAST NIGHT!! ::knocking on every piece of wood in sight::
I put him down at 7:30, fed him once at midnight, per our usual routine, then headed off to bed with three Advil and a big cup of water because I was feeling like ass. I guess it’s a head cold or something. I was exhausted and already dreading the inevitable trudge across the house in a few hours for the second nighttime feeding, and fearing any additional feedings that seem to be coming with this whole new world of solids introductions (because saying a baby will sleep through the night once they start solids is such a fucking lie, people!…. more on that in another post). I made sure to turn the monitor up louder than usual because I knew how hard it was going to be to get out of bed. Plus, Scott was out of town for the night and he’s usually the first to wake up when Kendall starts crying. In fact, my lovely husband who I love oh so dearly is the one to go get Kendall 90% of the time and bring him to me to nurse him in bed in the middle of the night. Then, only partly because he loves me so much and mainly because he’s afraid I am going to drop the baby in my sleep-walk haze, he is the one to take him back. It’s things like that that really make up for the fact that he has no ability to control the volume of his voice while I am trying to get Kendall down for a nap.
Now, I’m really hoping that the reason why I didn’t wake up to feed him last night is because he really did sleep through the night, not because I was so incredibly exhausted that I slept right through his cries and my husband wasn’t there to rescue the baby. Ugh… the mommy guilt, it’s trying to take away my joy. It’s trying to ruin this wonderful night of sleep for me!
Well, when I awoke this morning to, not the sound of a squawking/screaming baby, but to the sound of the school buses behind our house, I laid in bed for a minute or two wondering, “Why do I feel so…. so … rested? So… refreshed? Why do I not hear Kendall? How many times did he wake last night? Oh….my… God…. HE’S DEAD!! HE MUST BE!!!” I then leap out of bed, dart toward his room, fling his door open, and am greeted by my smiling baby, happily playing with his lovey. If my boobs weren’t about to explode, I would have tried the duck and roll before he saw me so that I could get some more sleep. I picked him up to bring him back to bed with me and reflected on a bit of advice my brother in law told me this summer. It went something like this:
“There will be a morning when you will wake up and not hear the baby crying, and you will be tempted to run to their room to check on them because you think they are dead. The way I see it is just enjoy the extra sleep. Chances are they are fine, and if they are dead, what are you going to do?”
Morbid. I know. It makes me chuckle every time. I should have listened to his advice.
So we all know that since I’ve blogged about this wondrous event Kendall will wake 4 or 5 times tonight, just to prove it was a fluke. Annnnnd… right on cue, like a scene from a movie, I hear him crying right now – 1 hour earlier than his usual first nighttime feeding, and this is actually the second feeding of the night already because he woke at 9:30. Yeah… it’s going to be a long night. Damn. I knew I shouldn’t have blogged about this. I’m off.
Kendall is 6 and a half months old