Saturday, November 21, 2009

Sleeping Like a Baby

Math quiz! If I went to sleep 3 hours after my 1 year old does, and woke up 2 hours before she did, how many hours could I sleep? I'm sure the answer would vary greatly for most people with a 1 year old (or any infant/baby/toddler for that matter). For me, the answer is 7. I could get 7 hours of sleep if I went to sleep 3 hours after her, and woke up 2 hours before her. That's how many hours I could get (at least). The real answer is 5. I get 5 hours of sleep each night. So the real question isn't how many hours could I get, but why don't I?

Most people I know would kill for 7 hours of sleep a night (especially parents). They would sign a contract right now signing over their first born for 7 hours of sleep, especially if it was their first born that was making that task impossible. But for me, 7 hours of sleep is apparently too much. In fact, if you did the real math, you would have figured out that I could actually get 12 hours of sleep if I went to bed at the same time as Kaylani, and woke up at the same time as her too (that would of course mean I went to bed at 7pm and woke up at 7am, but that's besides the point). So what's wrong with me? Why am I throwing away anywhere from 2-7 hours of sleep each night? And the other question some parents have asked me is, where do I get this wonderful drug that I give Kaylani each night?

The answer to the second question is easy...Target. Just kidding, I don't give her any drugs (except Infants' Tylenol...but only when she's teething, sick, or tired). The answer to the first question is harder...because I really have no idea. I've been given the gift of sleep and I've chosen to return it for what amounts to unusable store credit. For all her life, Kaylani has been a great sleeper. Whether it was only waking up every 3-4 hours when she was born, to sleeping 11-12 hours straight through now, she's been better than I could have ever imagined. The problem is that for all my life, I've never been a good sleeper.

I'm what you could call a morning and a night person. I'll wake up at 5 or 6am, and could still be going strong at 2am or 3am (sure helped me get through college...and by get through, I mean stay up and play video games while watching TV). I could be up and at the gym (back when I used to go to the gym) at 5am and then close down a bar at 2am. Or more appropriately now, I could be up at 5am checking email and surfing the web, and still up at 11pm checking email and finishing up some work. Something I figured out about 10 years ago was that I just don't need sleep.

For years, I thought that the phrase "sleeping like a baby" was a bunch of BS. Sure they look like Angels when they're quiet and laying there, but it only lasts for a few minutes or hours at a time. And if that were true, then you could say that I used to sleep like a baby. But now that I have Kaylani, the phrase makes a lot more sense to me. I only wish I could really sleep like a baby too.

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