Since I am breastfeeding, I am always the one to get up with little R. I suppose I could have B get up and feed her pumped milk, but it seems unnecessarily complicated to do that when there's milk on tap. Also, B has always had trouble sleeping and is very sensitive to a lack of sleep. If he got up, he probably could not get back to sleep and would be completely useless the next day. I suppose if I was sick or otherwise seriously suffering, I would have him do it, but since that hasn't been the case yet, I get up instead.
R still wakes up a lot. She is sleeping better now in the early evening, for up to 6 hours occasionally (which since she goes to sleep at 8 pm, means she doesn't wake up until 2 am). But after her initial long sleep, she wakes up every 3 hours, or even every 2 hours, until 8 am or so. This means I wake up at (for example) 12 am, 3 am, 5 am, 6:30 am, 7 am and then for good at 8. I haven't slept for more than 3 or 4 hours straight since she was born.
Of course I am tired. I do take a lot of naps, meaning my total amount slept is normal, but the lack of continuous sleep is very wearing. The really sad thing, though, is that even when she sleeps for longer, I cannot follow suit because my body thinks I need to wake up.
Last night she went to sleep at 8 as usual, and then slept until 3 am! She didn't wake up again until 6 am, and then woke up for good at 7:30. I went to bed at 11, and then woke up at 1:30 for no good reason. Then I woke up again to feed her, and after that could not go back to sleep until 4:30, even though R was sleeping peacefully. Thus I was very tired today, even though R slept like a champ.
I am not sure what to do about this problem. I am thinking about moving her out of my bedroom (she sleeps in her bassinet but in the same room), because I keep focusing on every little sound she makes: "Is R all right? Is she awake or just repositioning herself?" I don't usually respond unless she is actually crying and unhappy, because I want her to learn to self-soothe, but I lay there tense in the dark, waiting for her to settle or get more upset. Maybe if she was further away it would be easier for me to relax.
I am worried that I wouldn't hear her if she did need me though (or rather that I would worry about this and thus not sleep; she can certainly make herself heard when necessary). Also, then I would have farther to travel to fetch her: but since I always feed her in a different room than the bedroom, I suppose this doesn't matter much.
I am not sure what else I should do to improve my sleep habits. Hopefully as R gets older and starts sleeping better, the problem will resolve on its own. I certainly hope so! On the less optimistic side, my mother told me that she started sleeping badly when she had children, and has never gone back to good sleep. Fingers crossed for a better outcome.
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