Well Rested

**I started writing this entry two days ago but never finished…  I’m now finishing it at 2:45 AM which is ironic considering the title.  It still stands, however!…

Wesley is currently sleeping through his "alarm" this morning.   !!!!!

We have one of those special kids clocks that turn color/play music when it is OK for him to wake up/come downstairs in the morning.  The one we have is the "Tot Clock" and it’s AWESOME and using it with our new strategies has been instrumental in getting him to understand the concept of staying in his bed all night.  I’ve been experimenting with different times over the past several days.  Some mornings he was up by 6:30.  Which isn’t bad, considering he is actually sleeping pretty much all night and not up 11 times a night anymore!  The thought is, you set it early to begin with so they can "catch on"… he gets tons of praise when he brings it downstairs calling, "Mommy, the clock is yellow!" (it is blue all night and changes to yellow and plays a little song at the time you set)… eventually you can set it later and later each day until you reach the desired time you’d like him to sleep until.  My goal would be 7:30 AM.  Today I had it set for 6:55 and it’s currently 7:05 and he is STILL sleeping. 

Jasper is also doing really well.  We didn’t concentrate as strictly on him due to nursing and his age, but even with changing up the order of our routine, keeping his naps consistent and an early bedtime, he has gone from waking several times a night to only waking once, and every two or three nights he gives us a treat and will sleep 11 hours straight.  Last night was the luck of the draw and BOTH kids gave us a full night of sleep at the same time!  HALLELUJA!

This is such a new thing to me, as Wesley just never did that.  In fact, he has never slept in a 10 hour stretch in his entire life, and the fact that he is now just blows my mind.  Three years without a full night’s sleep will do that to you!  Of course I got used to it and as I’ve mentioned before, there is something that gives us Mommies our superpowers that can handle lack of sleep so much better than anyone else.  It becomes your "new normal" and it’s not really as bad as it sounds.  Of course things still had to get REALLY BAD before they got better in this situation, and the night Wesley was up 11 times I wanted to claw my eyeballs out and just could not see the light at the end of the tunnel, but now it makes sense, and we are enjoying the benefits of our hard work and dedication.

One of the most significant things (other than the SLEEP–the glorious, glorious sleep!) is that Nathan and I have our evenings free again!  I never realized how much time we lost as a couple together, either just enjoying quiet time on the couch watching TV, cleaning, or, um… actually having sex in our OWN BED.  (We had to be pretty creative in the past!)  When both kids are in bed and asleep before 8 o’clock, you just have this whole new WORLD at your fingertips.  The first few nights we had no idea what to do with our time!  I can’t wait until the weather gets a little better, as I foresee us spending a lot of evenings on the back porch watching the sunset drinking a glass of wine (with the baby monitors nearby!) as the light fades and the stars come out.  

Now that we are getting used to this and the "all nighters" are a thing of the past, I can already tell I’m feeling much better emotionally and physically. I think my body is still getting used to it, though.  The other night, Nathan decided after the kids were in bed to go hang out with some buddies, so I decided to just GO TO BED EARLY.  It was absolutely heavenly closing all the shades and sinking into my fluffy bed at 8:30 pm and drifting off… my body absolutely drank up the sleep.  It was as if my batteries needed a full charge and I finally got one.  Still, I had to get up around 4 AM to pump, but I did it as quickly as I could and when I went back to bed I fell immediately back to sleep instead of tossing and turning as I had been before.  

Wesley has also been showing the effects of being well rested.  His behavior has improved a LOT, whether it be the fact that Nathan and I have learned some great new tools in setting boundaries and letting him know that we’re in charge and he’s spending less time pushing his limits, or his sleep has made him a happier kid overall… but in any case, he has not said "I hate you" in weeks, he rarely hits, and he’s just back to being a sweeter little boy these days and I’m definitely not complaining!  He also LOOKS better.  Nathan and I had worriedly remarked in the beginning of this process how pale and sunken-eyed he had began to look.  He was also starting to get so skinny, and although he’s still my little stringbean, you can tell he’s putting on a bit more weight and just has a healthier look overall.

With all that said, I don’t regret anything we’ve done in the past, and if I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing.  That’s the thing about parenthood… you just do what you gotta do, and learn as you go along.  I am now better able to enjoy the time with my kids while we are awake, I still get plenty of snuggles in, and I don’t guilt myself anymore over any of the choices I made back then or now.  They are both happy, healthy, and now well rested kids, as are Nathan and I… and that’s what matters most!