Desperate times call for desperate measures. If you count the nearly nine months of sleep interruptions I endured during my pregnancy with Michael, and add that time to the nine months that it's continued since his birth, I'm going on 18 months of torture-level deprivation. And so, my dear, sweet, husband has volunteered to "fall on the sword" for me so that just maybe, I can start to become functional again soon.
We've moved Michael's mini-crib into an upstairs bedroom and installed an aero-bed semi-permanently along with it. For the last three nights, Tom has been sleeping upstairs with Michael so that I can have a nice, quiet bedroom to myself.
Of course, we've run into some unforeseen problems. The main one is that the master bedroom is directly below Michael's new bedroom, and we are now learning for the first time just how much the floor creaks up there, and how loud it sounds down below. The creaking is not the only sound that comes through, however. I can pretty clearly hear Michael's cries above a certain volume, and even Tom's voice on the occasions that he sings to Michael to calm him down.
So, the first night was a bust. The second night, Tom armed me with earplugs and a noise machine. Between the two, I couldn't hear anything going on upstairs, but I couldn't sleep either. It appears that after spending over a year without having one night of uninterrupted sleep, my body has forgotten how it all works. I tossed and turned for the entire night.
Night three, I decided to forgo the earplugs and stick with just the noise machine, because I find the earplugs to be rather uncomfortable. Unfortunately, the noise machine alone just can't cover the commotion that goes on up there. And I still had the problem of waking up automatically, over and over again, even when there was no need, and lying awake for long periods of time afterwards worrying, among other things, about my poor husband taking on such a task alone.
Thankfully, while Michael had it pretty rough on the first night, the next two nights have been better.
He's fighting less and less over the six-hours-between-bottles-at-night requirement, so we can hopefully push it up soon to seven, and then eight hours. And then maybe, just maybe, we can establish one waking as "the norm." (Dare I even wish yet for none?)
If that ever happens, Tom will come back down to join me again, since he feels that one trip up and down the stairs per night is doable.
I hope and pray that it happens soon. I miss my husband. Alone now in a suddenly strange and empty bedroom; it's no wonder that sleep eludes me, still.
