Sleep is NOT Overrated

Everyone tells you that the second child will hit milestones much earlier than the first child. “They” tell me this is because the second child wants to keep up with the first child. While I heard this, I wasn’t sure of it. I didn’t want to start comparing Madeline to Abigail and scrutinizing everything they do. I know that it sometimes is hard to not compare your child to other children but you want the reassurance that your child is on the normal track of life. Of course you secretly say to yourself that your kid is actually smarter than their kid because they can do X, Y, and Z better or at an earlier stage. I don’t know why we do it but we do.
The whole purpose of this blog was to write down those milestones in our lives. Not only baby milestones but also just my thoughts on any one day. I actually started blogging in 2006 when I found out I was pregnant. However, I wasn’t ready to share it with everyone so I eased into the blog talking about other nonsense (well, it isn’t nonsense to me but probably to you). Sorry for the tangent.

One milestone that I realized I didn’t write down was when Abigail started sleeping through the night. I knew that I would always remember that date because it was the day I returned to work after my maternity leave. We joked that Abby knew I was returning to work and therefore knew she started to sleep through the night. Well I returned to work on November 2 but Madeline was still not sleeping through the night. I would get Madeline to bed anywhere between 9 and 10 PM but would see her shining face between 2 and 3 AM. Fortunately, she would only be up for about 15-20 minutes allowing me to go back to bed until the alarm went off at 5 AM. I honestly had no clue how I was going to function a whole day at work this way but it is amazing what you do when you have no alternatives. I worked hard Monday through Thursday and then left early on Fridays to get a nap before Josh got home with the girls. I also would catch a nap on either Saturday or Sunday to sustain me through the week. But since we are not squirrels and do not store up sleep for the winter (especially when it is in the 80's here…IN NOVEMBER!) this was starting to drain me. But miraculously, by the end of the third week back at work, Madeline decided to test out sleeping through the night. THANK GOODNESS. Of course because I figured this won’t be a lasting thing, I wasn’t telling a lot of people. I really didn’t need her to prove me wrong. But the next night and even the night after that, she slept through the night from 9:30 PM to 6 AM. I think she would have slept later except I wake her up at 6 AM during the week. I will soon start pushing back the bedtime but I don’t want to move anything yet. I did see her at 3 AM on Sunday morning but we were so far out of whack on schedule on Saturday that I wasn’t surprised. But I will take her sleeping 4 out of the last 5 nights!

I got more sleep Friday night than I have had since August 12. Thank you, Madeline!