We had quite a weekend.  Having two kids is a wonderful experience, and the hardest thing I have ever done!  We have been having some sleep issues and this weekend was no exception.

I got into work this morning in a haze and it reminded me of an episode of How I Met Your Mother where Lilly and Marshall are delirious from the new baby and everything looks and sounds like it’s happening under water.  That is exactly how I feel today!  I remember laughing pretty hard during the episode and the relief that washed over me to see an accurate portrayal of this cloudy feeling.

As a result I searched the interwebs found some pretty staggering statistics about sleep and parenting:

• New parents lose 44 DAYS of sleep in the first year of a child’s life (that’s 44×24 hours=1056 HOURS)
• Parents get just 5.1 hours of sleep per night in their first year
• Surveyed mothers survive on an average of just three-and-a-half hours’ sleep a night for the first four months of their baby’s life
• Half the surveyed mothers said that the sleeplessness had caused fights with their partners
• 83% of new mothers surveyed said that sheer fatigue put them off sex

This all feels true.

What’s amazing is that as hard as it all is, I can and am doing it.  I would have never predicted that I would react this way when I had kids.  I thought the husband would do most of the work but it turns out, I am stronger and more resilient than I realized.  And actually, those middle of the night moments can be really special and bonding.  After working and being in daycare all day, sometimes it’s what we both need.  I mean, I’d like the sleep and we both need that, too, but the middle of the night is what I tend to remember most about babyhood.

In the end, I’m learning a lot about myself, and growing into a parent.  And someone who drinks a lot of coffee.

Can any parents out there relate?!

xoxo

PS If you really want a good laugh, Google ‘mom multitasking’