National Sleep Awareness Week

I just learned that this week (March 3-9) is National Sleep Awareness Week. Did you know that the average adult isn't getting enough sleep? The National Sleep Foundation (yes - it actually exists!), suggests that an adult get, on average, at least 7 hours of sleep per night. Well, maybe they should talk to my BOYS!

I think I've posted before that after Tyler was born, I was quickly introduced to the fact that I have NO control over the amount of sleep that I get (or more correctly - don't get) anymore. With Tyler, I spent the first 8 months of his life a vampire - watching the clock all night long as I would try to get him back to sleep. Then we finally got him to sleep consecutive hours at a time, and he started waking up at the butt crack of dawn. I think he was 2 and a half before he slept past 7am, ever, and then we had Connor.

Connor is a much different sleeper than any baby I've ever seen - that being that he DOES NOT NEED IT! I've never seen a baby fight sleep like him - and to this day, if you get a total of one hours worth of naps out of him during the day, consider it a success. He wakes up every day before 4 amd 5 am (although he does sleep through the night), and getting a baby back to sleep that has already had at least 9 hours of sleep, is almost impossible! At least with him! I fight him, I feed him, I give him his pacifier, we rock, we rock some more, we bounce, and finally some days, I give up. I've spent almost an hour a day in his bedroom in the morning at times, trying to get him back to sleep so a) I can go back to sleep and b) so he's not completely exhausted during the day since he doesn't sleep well at daycare.

Where does this leave us? Tired. Very, very tired. I feel rediculous because we've been getting IN BED at 8:30 the past couple of night to relax, and because we're just so DANG TIRED! Last night, I think we were both asleep by 9:20. This is very frustrating, because Tyler doesn't go to bed until about 8:30 - because he DOES take a good nap during the day at daycare, which is much needed for him. Tyler has always needed naps - and since he was 9 months old, was on the most predictable nap schedule, it was funny. You could time his naps almost within 5 minutes. Not anymore....

Life with 2 kids leaves no down time - at least for us. I hear about people that have kids that sleep until 8 or 9am frequently. Where are they? Why are those kids not here? The weekends start at 5am sometimes, and you have no time to stop, ever, until 8:30 when Tyler is finally asleep.

I'm frequently reminded that "this too shall pass". These years will fly by, and when they are 10 and 12, I will have forgotten how tired I am. What's sad is that I'm getting used to it. I can easily function on 4 hours of sleep, although a couple night in a row of that and I'm a mess of tears. I'm afraid we're getting to that point again. If I drop my pen, I might just cry.

So, someone call the National Sleep Awareness Center and tell them that we could fix all of this, if they would be willing to come to my house and take care of my boys at 2am, 4am, 5am, etc. I'm pretty certain at this point if I got the recommended "at least 7 hours" of sleep, that I could be SUPERWOMAN!

(In the picture above, Connor is using his crib bumper as a pillow!)