I have a ton of mini adventures I could document as my family of three adjusts to being a family of four ... but what I've learned this time around is that my slightly older body is having a harder time adjusting to sleep deprivation. Can four years really make that much of a difference? Apparently so. I have three and a half weeks left of my leave and I realized that I needed to start now if I wanted to make the transition easier (and realistic) to the routine I'll need to keep then.
So, this week - going to bed at a decent time. This means my pre-pregnancy bedtime of between 10 and 11. (Because my pregnancy bedtime of 8:30 - 9 would be ideal, but completely unrealistic.) Going to bed at the time has turned out to be fairly easy. Mostly because O is starting to grant us four hours of sleeping stints at night. So, I get to sleep until about 2:30 - 3 depending on when he last ate. Of course, because I have to pump after I feed him, I am not getting back to bed until 4 if I'm lucky. This means that when he wakes up between 6 and 7, I am nudging (not so gently) my husband to wake-up. Then I sleep until 8 or 9.
Of course, the sleeping until 8 or 9 is in no way preparing me for when I have to get up at 5:30 in mid-March, but this is why I am making the transition phase four weeks long. I figure next week, I'll tackle pumping during the day like I will have to at work. And then two weeks out, I'll do the whole, getting up when I will need to get up. Frankly, there's no need to rush abolishing the sleeping as much as I can aspect of being on leave with the benefits of a stay-at-home-spouse. Of course, I will look forward to the day when O decides he wants to sleep through the night ... but if he's anything like his big brother, I have another five months to get through first!
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