One of the hardest adjustments for me over the last 3 weeks has been getting used to never having a moment to myself. With Matthew, we had a routine. I know him, and I am able to be in a different room than he is without worrying that he will get hurt or destroy something. He had a predictable bedtime and by around 8pm most nights, I was done for the day.
Enter Nathan.
This kid has taken our family from 0-100mph in no time flat! It feels like we are always running after him, always catching him as he walks off the couch, always saying things like, "No, don't eat that Nathan!" or, "Get off Matthew's head please, Nathan!"
Never a dull moment, as you can imagine.
Don't get me wrong - I love this little guy! His spunk is awesome and he cracks us up all the time. But he is exhausting!
At the moment, he is pretty clingy with me, not wanting me to leave the room...or move 2 feet away from him. I am not sure how to get things done with a little one (actually, a heavy little one!) on my hip all the time. I try to put him on my back in the carrier as much as possible, but I get tired out pretty quickly. It's a challenge to do dishes and keep him from putting toys from the fridge into the dogs water at the same time. Sigh.
I have struggled most with not having downtime at night to relax with Brad. I used to have at least a couple of hours after Matthew went to bed to pick up the house, fold laundry, watch tv, read a book...it's been hard not having that. Nathan's schedule in Korea said that he slept from 10pm till 6am every night. Um, that's not going to work here I'm afraid! Even though he adjusted quickly to the time here, he went right onto that schedule and was up late every night. If we tried to put him down sooner in our bed, he just rolled and rolled and laughed and climbed until it was either 10pm or we got him up for a while and tried again later.
It just wasn't working.
Since he's been in the crib, we have been working at getting him down closer to 8pm. The first couple of nights we did 9pm, and it took a while. Then we started taking him in for his bottle at 8:30pm, and he started falling asleep more quickly. Then it was 8pm, and tonight I took him in at 7:30pm and he was asleep by 8pm! We have been taking Matthew in after Nathan is asleep so that he doesn't wake him up, and staying until Matthew falls asleep. Tonight I was out of the boys' room by 8:45pm, which felt like a major accomplishment. Don't get me wrong, sleep is not going perfectly around here by any means. There were about 2 1/2 hours of crying/fussing in the middle of the night last night that left us totally wiped out today. But all in all, I feel like we're making progress in the right direction.
Best of all, it is 9pm, I think I can manage to stay awake for another hour, and I have the house all to myself! I'm so thankful for some quiet time to just be.
And of course, to recover so that I'm ready to hit the ground running tomorrow when the troops awaken :)
3 comments:
I SO hear you! Different circumstances, but oh, so much the same. Having little sleep and no time to yourself is so hard to get used to. I'm praying that both of us will soon exit this stage in our parenting and enter the stage of calm routines again. And when that day comes let's get coffee (or decaf tea) together, ok?
I remember the coming home adjustment time. It's not easy. I don't think i went potty alone for a good 6 months. Hugs.
Wow, I could have written this 'word for word'. Well not the part about being on Matthew's head :). I'm starting to get used to my normal, that I LOVE so much. But, it takes sometime to get everybody used to all the changes.
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