Sweet Dreams

It's actually amazing what a good nights sleep will do. It's amazing how my view of a goodnight sleep has changed. When I was a preteen/teenager I was one of the girls who would actually stay up all night. I remember hearing from someone that if you stayed up for 3 nights straight you were "clinically insane" so of course, I wanted to try it. I only made it one full night and probably half of the second one before I passed out but still.. the fact that I wanted to attempt this shows the strange kid I was. Always up for adventure and a new challenge. Oh how the times have changed. When you have no kids and don't sleep for a night or two there is always a chance to catch up. With an infant or toddler there is no chance for catch up. It is your every day life. Unless you're one of those lucky ones who has kids that sleep 12 hours on a regular bases. I don't like those people.

 Here's how last night's amazing sleep went. Layla started to get overly happy at about 8pm. Tons of smiles and giggles. She usually gets extra happy at night for a bit before it turns into super cranky and then into get this girl to sleep. Last night was no different. I'm always scared to put her to bed too early because I know that means she will be up very early because she doesn't sleep very much. At 9pm we lined up and administered Layla's chloral hydrate, gabapentin, melatonin, and flush syringes. By 9:20pm she was out enough to lay her in her bed. Aaron and I got ready for bed and crawl in by 9:45pm. Layla stirs because she hears us. We were silent and off to dreamland. My alarm went of at 12:00am.. I stumbled out of bed to get Layla's food bag from the fridge, warmed it up, turned on the pump and tried to attach and start it as stealthily as possibly. She woke up briefly but a few shhh's and back pats put her back to sleep fairly quickly. I lay back in bed to get some more shut eye. Aaron's alarm went off at 4:40am, then 4:50am. He leans over and says "I'm going to say goodbye now because I think Layla's still asleep and I don't want to risk waking her up by coming back in right before I leave.".  The front door shut and Aaron was off to work at 5:10am. I close my eyes once again to go back to sleep when I hear Layla making noises. I wasn't sure how much time had actually passed so I looked at the time.. 5:18am.. Ugh. I left Layla in her bed until just before 6:00am. She was switching from whining, to cooing and talking to herself.. I was hoping she'd fall back asleep but that didn't happen. So I moved her to my bed and set ourselves up so I could pat her back in attempt to get some more shut eye. Unfortunately neither of us got back to sleep so we headed out to the living room to start our day. Really, she got almost 8 hours sleep. And I got 6-7 which is good! I'm always thankful for the nights when she's not cranky enough to need to be picked up and rocked in the middle of the night. I know I need more sleep but I just think it's not in the cards right now. The few nights I've slept separate from Layla I'm still not able to sleep through the night. So instead I will treasure the nights like last night and pray for more of them.