Sleep

All that I heard while pregnant was "get sleep now because once that baby comes YOU WILL NEVER SLEEP AGAIN." followed by an evil smile. I hated when people told me that. Mostly because I love sleep very much, and also because that's not what I wanted to hear. So I thought I would break it down for the soon to be new moms out there. And of course please remember that my experience is just one of many. You could have a baby that never sleeps, or one that sleeps all of the time.

If you are going to breastfeed you need to understand how often breastfed babies eat. Although I read a ton of information about breastfeeding prior to Will arriving I must have missed that chapter. In the beginning it is every 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Now take a minute and think about how much sleep that affords you.

Did you do the math? Are you sad? Yeah, I was too. I wish I could be positive here, but that first month sucked for me. So just be prepared.

After that things get better. I promise it gets better! Will started sleeping for long periods (4-5 hour stretches over night) around 4 weeks, so hang in there. When your baby does that for the first time you wake up and feel like a new person. It's amazing.

Slowly your baby gets into a routine and you have this new mom power where you know you should be tired but you don't care anymore because you have shit to do. All of the time there is shit to do.

So I won't sit here and say annoying things like "you don't understand how tired you will be" or "get your sleep now!" because no, you don't understand and even if you sleep everyday all day until the baby is born you will still be tired once they are here. I will say this though, having a baby is amazing. Seriously. Yes they cry and you will get up at 2am and be like "dammit baby!!!" while you angrily get out of bed. At 2am this morning Will decided he was hungry and I found myself huffing and puffing to the nursery saying things like, "oh really? wake up at 2 am when I have to work in 5 hours? is that funny to you?". I'm not proud of it. Then you will see them and take it down a notch because they are a baby. And this is what babies do. If I was laying in bed and woke up hungry but had no means to feed myself I would cry too. In fact if I am hungry now I get pretty upset until I am fed.

One day your kid will be grown and you will get to sleep in and a part of you is going to miss getting up during the middle of the night and having that moment when it is just you and your baby. It's as if you are the only ones for miles around and it is beautiful. The exhaustion will pass and it is those moments that you will remember.