Sleep deprivation makes you do funny things.
So for the past couple weeks I've woken up in the night thinking that I was either holding Noah in my arms or he was somewhere in the bed with us but I couldn't find him. This usually ended up in me patting around frantically looking for him and then fully waking up and realizing he was in his crib.
But 2 nights ago I grabbed Jamie and asked him "Where's the baby?" and he said "He's in the bed?" and then I freaked out and said "He's in the bed!?!?" and then I think I woke up and realized again that he wasn't in the bed and Jamie said to me, "Vaness, you really have to stop acting so crazy."
It's true. But I mentioned this to my sister who is in the army and she said that when you're in the field you're quite sleep deprived and often wake up clutching for your rifle thinking, "Where's my gun?"
Funny that motherhood can lead to baby paranoia while the army leads to gun paranoia.
Anyway, last night I didn't wake up until Noah cried and the first stretch was actually 4 hours I think - his longest ever. So we're making progress.
Obviously, I can't identify with your experience of child raising but I know all too well the experience of sleep deprivation. I burned it at both ends this weekend staying up really late and still getting up early. Basically, my mind starts to go a bit strange. Things become less clear, paranoia settles in, and all I can think about is sleep. It's so clear to me now when my sleep tank is running low. Good post.
ReplyDeletehow did i not know your sister is in the army?
ReplyDeletealso, i heard another parent say something similar, in the nightmare of my-child-is-in-the-bed-and-i-think-i-crushed-them.
This really made me laugh because Graham and I had the exact same thing happen, only it was the other way around. However, Graham couldn't have blogged about it the next day because he didn't remember(and he doesn't have a blog), I recall, I felt a little bitter that I had one more extra wake up that night because of him and he didn't even remember it!
ReplyDelete