Sunday, June 28, 2009

My knight in wrinkled pjs

This is my fantabulous hubby E. (And my adorable son N.) Now, given that N is just shy of seven weeks old, he's not particularly skilled at sleeping through the night. Since we've decided to breastfeed, there's not a great deal for E to do during the night when N wakes up. He could try, but I'm pretty sure neither of them would find it particularly satisfying. Given the prospect of unsatisfactory feeding and the fact that E is going to work during the day, I've been fielding all nighttime baby business since we got home. The way I figure it, there's not much E could do short of bringing N to me anyway, so it just seemed reasonable to let him sleep. (Especially until I go back to work after the fourth!) Plus, now that N was typically only waking up once or twice in the night, I reasoned that I was starting to recover. Or so I thought.

Because I've had almost seven weeks without more than two and a half to three hours of sleep at a stretch, I'm starting to get delirious. Things that normally wouldn't phase me are ridiculously frustrating. Little nuances that I used to pick up on readily escape me. Needless to say, I was starting to simply exist - I wasn't thriving anymore. My fuzzy head was letting me do whatever I need to do, but really not much else.

Seeing that I was losing the ability to form a coherent sentence, E did perhaps the most chivalrous thing he's done in our entire marriage. The most beautiful words I've ever heard came out of his mouth...

"Honey, why don't you go on to bed? I'll even fill a bottle to take the first feeding."

I couldn't have swooned more if he had slayed a dragon. PLUS - our little man went to bed at 10 pm, woke up at 2 am (and E fed him!) and then he woke up for me at 6 am. I totally got to sleep for a full eight hours. My husband is absolutely the most amazing man of all time.

2 comments:

The Blevins' said...

isn't it amazing what 8 hours will do for a girl!! Congrats! I admire you!

AJ said...

Amanda-
I totally understand! When Sam was about 5 weeks old and Keith was still in Afghanistan, our neighbor volunteered to watch him one afternoon for like four hours so I could sleep. I had only slept in 2 hour spurts until then and it was the most wonderful thing I had ever done. I will never forget it! Here's to hoping you can get a bit more sleep...
Alicia