Shhh Momma's Sleeping...

Tylenol PM is my friend. Yes this weekend I got to sleep! It's been a long 18 months of broken sleep with sleeping stints maxing out at about 4 hours for me. Otherwise waking every 3, 2 hours, or even minutes apart ... every night. Every night. It's been taxing and downright stressful at times. I am blessed with ability to function on limited sleep. Law school and an excessive propensity to be an night owl has provided me with plenty of 'sleep training' for a non sleeping infant/toddler. However, the difference being that as a night owl it is my choice, if I am exhausted I can sleep and catch up. Not so much with a child.

It has only been in recent months that it's been possible for me to get away for a night of sleep. Ace for the longest time would not take a bottle, and while he wouldn't starve it would be far from a pleasant experience for him or his father. But he has been taking a bottle now for a while and most nights now Loving Husband gets Ace to sleep. It's just once he wakes in the middle of the night, I am the source of food.

Last weekend I took Saturday night and slept downstairs. The problem is that I've been so trained to wake every few hours that regardless of my night of free-from nursing sleep, I still woke semi-frequently. Boo! So during this past week, I got the idea of Tylenol PM. Ahh what a brilliant plan :-D And that's what I did on Saturday and Sunday night this week. I slept downstairs and knocked myself out. I got 5 hours on Saturday night of uninterrupted sleep and 7 last night. Thank God!

Now today I'm hovering in a bit of a T-PM haze and feel a tad groggy. But in another sense I do feel rested. Which is good, because I also think I'm fighting off a cold. Siigh. No rest for the mommy.

So, while I was snoozing away how did Ace do with his his sleep progress? Well not so hot. He slept 3 hours or less for the first stint and then the rest of the night searched for me repeatedly with frequent bouts of waking and migrating around on our bed looking for me. Loving Husband put him back in his bed after him waking every five minutes - literally - for an hour. He slept again then from 4:30-7:15 and then was wide awake, which is fine. Although this is a clear indication that we need to be more proactive to put him back in his bed after he wakes up. And if I am rested enough perhaps getting out of my bed and going to his to feed him when he wakes that first time. ... We'll see.

And how could I leave you with all that verbiage and not provide you with a picture? Ace has propensity to uncover himself as he sleeps, and so after he's been out for about an hour one of us goes in and checks on him to cover him back up... and so last night we both went in so I could give him an extra squeeze before I went to sleep... and we found this:

Ace was happily slumbering away with his head hanging off the bed! Loving Husband hugged him and slid him back into bed ... but not before I snapped a picture :)