Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Just 1 more hour...

Since we got Kaylani back to sleeping more than 3 hours on her own a few weeks ago, things have been okay. Not great, but okay. I know I shouldn't be complaining since she's been sleeping 8-9 hours straight every night (that part has been great), but its the mornings that are only okay.

Kaylani is usually in her crib and asleep by 8pm on a normal day. Add 9 hours to that and it means that Kaylani has been waking up at approximately 5am for the last couple of weeks. 5am is early. I don't care how you look at it, but 5am is EARLY. Even when I was pulling all nighters in college watching infomercials studying, 5am was still early. 3 or 4am was late, but 5am was early. Anyways, you get the point.

One thought was if she went to sleep a little later, then she would wake up a little later. That theory went down the drain when Kaylani went to bed at 9pm, and woke up at, yep, 5am. Then, instead of just being awake, she was awake, tired, and cranky because she only got 8 hours of sleep. And when Mommy and Daddy are up at 5am too, tired/cranky baby is not a great way to start the day.

Over the past 5 days or so, my body has started to adjust to waking up at 5am. I've even been awake enough to hear her first babbling sounds instead of her ear piercing screams that she lets out when she's bored of herself. But every day while changing her 10lb diaper and watching the sun come up, I ask her why she won't sleep for just 1 more hour.

The way I look at it, an hour isn't a lot to ask for. She doesn't even need to sleep during it. All she has to do is lay in her crib and talk to herself (quietly) until the clock hits 6am (or 7am, but I don't want to get greedy). Out of nowhere today, Kaylani listened. She started talking around 5am, and let out a few of her standard cries of "HEY! COME GET ME!" but then, she went silent. Mommy and I both picked up our heads to stare at the monitor after a few minutes to see if she was messing with us, but she was asleep again. Amazingly.

At 6:30am, I woke up...luckily. I hadn't set my alarm the night before because who needs an alarm when you have a rooster baby sleeping in the next room. I looked over and she was still sleeping. I woke Mommy up and asked her what she did to our baby, and she said nothing. Groggily I started getting ready for the day. I was all thrown off since my day had been starting with a baby cuddle, playtime, THEN my turn to get ready, but not today. I was dressed and ready to go, even caught up on sports, blogs, and tweets, and Kaylani still wasn't up.

At 7:30am, Kaylani finally woke up. 11.5 hours after she fell asleep, or 2.5 hours after her morning cry and normal wake up time. Luckily for me it was 10 minutes before I had to leave for a long day in NYC, New Brunswick (where I got my picture taken with Spike Lee after winning a James Burke Marketing Award for my work on AMBI), and then a Little League playoff game to see if we made it into the final round or not (we didn't) so I got to hold her for a few minutes. Maybe this is the start of her sleeping a little bit later each day now. Maybe we're about to get just a little more sleep each morning now. Or maybe this was a one time thing that is just going to confuse us going forward. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter. After all, when Kaylani asks me for 1 more hour of sleep many years from now, I'll probably only let that happen every now and then too.

6 comments:

Daddy Files said...

This is totally unrelated to your post, but I just wanted to check in on you and see if you're OK.

After all, the Red Sox are now in first place. And that's largely because they are 7-0 AGAINST THE YANKEES THIS YEAR!!!!! Yup, 7 wins and ZERO losses. I'm not a math person, but that's pretty good I think.

That's gotta be tough for you huh? For your favorite team to just be absolutely dominated by a hated rival. To watch two of your top starters -- Burnett and Wang -- not make it out of the third inning on back to back nights? To have such a suspect bullpen that no lead is safe?

As I sit here typing this, listening the "YOU DID STEROIDS" chant wafting from the Fenway crowd during A-Roid's at-bat, I couldn't help but think of you poor, miserable Yankees fans who haven't tasted a World Series victory in nearly a decade. I think of you guys and...

I LOVE IT! Take your $200 million payroll and stuff it!!!

SurprisedMom said...

Gee, Daddy Files, a Red Sox fan are you? LOL

Ok, back to the post . . . Kaylani is a wonderful baby to let you sleep late even if it's only for one day. Not many babies would respond to their parent's plea in such a positive manner.
And yes, many years from now when she is a teenager, she will BEG you for one more hour of sleep. She will welcome sleep. She will want to sleep all day and stay up all night.
Sorry, I shouldn't throw you into the future yet. I should let you enjoy all her babyhood before you should even have to think of the teen years. They come quickly enough.
Kaylani is a darling baby, by the way.

Danika said...

LOL - me, up at 4:30 today...Sloan, still sleeping. Of course, I did fall asleep in her bed last night at 8pm :)

JonnyTam13 said...

Oh DF. This is neither the time nor the place to talk about the Yankees and the Red Sox...mainly because the Yankees suck.

SM, it's true Kaylani is a wonderful baby and I really couldn't ask for more! I try not to think about the future yet. I'm pretty sure her asking me for another hour of sleep will be the least of my worries!

Danika, 8.5 hours of sleep for you is good...and even better when Sloan's getting more!

Otter Thomas said...

I always relate pretty well to your stories. Our son will not go to sleep before 11:30. He goes to bed around midnight every night. On the plus side he sleeps until 7 or 8 in the morning. On the negative side mommy and me never get any time alone at night. At least he has finally learned how to fall back asleep when he wakes up. I will not complain about sleeping all night no matter what.

JonnyTam13 said...

That's a tough call Otter. No Mommy/Daddy time and a late bedtime, or early mornings? Who am I kidding, we're usually asleep right after she is anyways so there is no Mommy/Daddy time! Like you said, won't complain about sleeping through the night at all.