Numbered Days

Simon has never slept particularly great – not since he woke up from his post-birth-and-initial-nursing 14 hour coma at around 9 pm the day he was born.  CK and I think back to those first hours and chuckle to ourselves.  He remembers thinking on that most blissful of days how shockingly easy having a newborn was going to be!  We marveled at how sweet his little coo was while he slept, we took pictures, we took video, and then we sat on the edge of my hospital bed peering into his little cot just waiting for him to stir.  And he never did.  He just kept sleeping, and cooing.

But once he woke up from that 14 hour first nap of his, we’ve been absolutely amazed ever since by how little he’ll sleep or how long he can stay awake or how he just needs one of us to hold him, wear him, or lay down with and cuddle him in order for him to go to sleep.  I think we’ve stopped trying to figure out how to fix Simon’s sleeping and we’ve accepted that he’s a bit of a sparkler – that is, he’s a bit difficult when it comes to sleep (and a few other things, too). 

We had a few deceptively amazing moments back in February when we were sure he turned the corner and began “sleeping through the night.”  For a two week stretch, Simon was going 5-7 hours every night before waking.  I remember once waking CK up and saying, “Look, he went 7 hours!”  Maybe he was just sleeping through a growth spurt or something, because no corner was actually turned, it was just a fluke.

And so we press on with our little sparkling Simon and many of my mornings are spent under the weight of this growing boy

His deepest, soundest, longest sleep happens when he’s nestled in the Sleepy Wrap or lain across my chest.  Sometimes I think of all the scrapbook pages I could be making or things I could be doing and I just wish Simon was the baby who could be put down awake and moments later be soundly asleep for a nap or at the very least transfer easily from arms to bed (that practically never happens; once we attempt a move, game over!).  But then I hear his heavy breathing or I feel the wet puddle collecting on my bare skin from his sleepy drool and I realize that these days are so, so numbered.  I don’t care about good intentioned warnings that we’re creating bad habits (we don’t believe it’s possible to “spoil” a baby nor do we believe in letting Simon “cry it out”).  The scrapbook pages can wait and the laundry, dishes, and dinner certainly can wait while I help my boy sleep a bit more soundly.  We spent money on the cutest IKEA crib bedding that goes with the curtains and the bright walls of our bedroom and I wonder if we’ll ever use it because Simon is happy as a clam sleeping in bed with us.  Sometimes I wish he was the baby who’d go down for the night in his own bed and stay down for 12 hours, but it seems that as soon as CK and I tip-toe out of the bedroom and try to avoid the creaky floor boards just outside of the bedroom, I look over at CK and say, “I miss him already.”  I snuggle up next to Simon in bed each night and while I am tired a lot of the time, I’m grateful all of the time that I get to lay next to my baby because I know the days are numbered.

I’m going to try to remember in the middle of a bad night like we had yesterday.  I’m going to try to remember in the middle of a bad day when I look at the clock and find out it’s only 1:00 and CK won’t be home for hours still!  I probably won’t do a very good job of remembering in the midst of it, but it’s there.

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