07.31.07
Sleeping Through the Night
I was thrilled when Che started sleeping through the night (defined as midnight to 5 in the morning by the Pediatric Sleep Disorders Clinic) at just two months of age. At 10 weeks, he started sleeping 8 to 10 hours a night. Now at three months he will sleep more than 10 hours a night. I still count Che’s ability to sleep so well as a blessing, because his sleep appears to be correlated to his health and happiness. Hey, everyone feels better after a good night’s sleep.
We were fortunate to find a daycare provider that has a 2:1 infant to teacher ratio that we could afford. His daycare provider is able to give him plenty of attention and contact, and she absolutely adores him. In a setting with more children, Che’s good behavior and happy disposition would have left him largely ignored , because attention is always given to the crying babies first.
However, I find myself jealous of the time his daycare teacher spends with him. Che’s propensity to sleep for twelve hours means that I only get one or two waking hours with him on weekdays. He is generally awake for an hour in the morning during which I feed him and then get both him and myself ready to leave by 7:30. When I get home around 6:30, I feed him and have about a half hour of play time before he conks out for the night. I didn’t even get to play with him some evenings because he would fall asleep while I was making dinner. Now I don’t start on dinner for my husband and I until after he has fallen asleep just so I can play with Che more.
Some times in the evenings I just want to pick him and hold him even though he is happily sleeping in his crib. I wake up during the night though he has barely stirred, and immediately want to grab him, but I restrain myself. I know that his healthy sleep is a good thing, and I don’t want to create bad habits. I already find myself missing the time when he would just snuggle with me.
Che is growing so fast that I savor every moment I have with him. And I acknowledge all those mothers out there who’s children are keeping them up at night. May you be able to bear the burden and still love and adore your children through your exhaustion. I wish I could relieve your burdens by giving you a full nights rest.
07.23.07
Miss Me?
Today was my first day back at work and Che’s first day at daycare. I’m relieved to say that it went well for both of us.
The key to a successful return to work is to have work waiting for you when you get there. I had enough time to fill my water bottle and open my email before my first meeting of the day. After two additional meetings, and a review of the current status of a project, I already had enough work lined up to get me through the week. In addition, my co-workers had some beautiful Winston flowers delivered to me in the afternoon. It was nice to feel that I had been missed and that my return was a relief to my co-workers rather than a burden.
As for Che, I knew that I would have a harder time than he did. Even though he had only been separated from both of his parents for a total of 45 minutes since birth, I knew he would adjust well to daycare. We are lucky enough to have a wonderful family daycare with a 2-1 ratio of children to teachers. He probably got more attention from them than he gets from me in the same period of time. They played with him and read to him as well as took care of his needs.
When I finally got home (my husband gets off work earlier than I do and picks him up), Che didn’t even have any interest in me. Sure, he played with me for about 5 minutes, but other than that had no interest in even looking at me while I fed him. Now some mothers would interpret this as anger at having left him at daycare. I know better. Che knew his mom was holding him, so he didn’t need to look at me. Instead he was checking out his surroundings to make sure he was at home. I’m guessing that he will do that for a while when he gets home to be sure he hasn’t ended up somewhere weird at the end of the day. I’m sure this phase will pass and he will be interested in me once again.
But did he miss me during the day as much as I missed him? Not a chance.
