Archive for August 25th, 2009

Sleep Avoidance Program

The baby is several months old and has been sleeping through the night for a while. It was rough those first two or three months, but we made it and have been enjoying solid night’s sleep every night. Or had been enjoying.

The kids recently coordinated their efforts to interrupt my sleep. Friday night (also known as Saturday morning) it was the middle child around midnight, the oldest around 1 AM, the baby at 5 AM, and the oldest again at 6:15-ish.

Although it was rough, I must say the kids were off their game Friday night. We had a stretch from 1 to 5, a whole 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Back in the day, when those kids were in their prime, we had nights of no more than 2 hours of sleep at a time. I think they may have miscommunicated, and whoever had the 3 AM shift didn’t know it was his turn to wake us.

But I must commend the baby for bringing his A-game. Whereas the other children just needed to be accompanied back to bed, where they quickly fell back to sleep, the baby did not want just company. Nor did he want just to be held. No, he held out until I was carrying him and walking around the house before he stopped crying. When I gave up on that, he refused to go back to sleep until he was fed. Baby 1, parents 0.

I’m sure that, when the kids are older and cannot be roused from bed easily, I will look back on these days with fondness.

During that night the king could not sleep so he gave an order to bring the book of records, the chronicles, and they were read before the king.

Esther 6:1