We’ve got a good little sleeper on our hands for the most part, most of the time. But man, there are a few hiccups with Ellen’s sleep habits that really frustrate this tired mother and make me reluctant to officially give her the title of “good sleeper”.

First, she can’t nap on weekends because her brother is noisy. While I can certainly relate, I am quite concerned for what this will mean when she starts daycare, AKA the noise center of the universe. Girlfriend is never grumpy unless she is hungry or tired – both normally easy fixes. But the noise makes it suddenly difficult.

Yesterday, for example, she missed the all-important evening nap, ending approximately 1.5-2 hours before bedtime. And the result was a complete meltdown at 6pm and subsequently a very early bedtime. On a weekend, an evening meltdown/early bedtime is fine (loud, but fine). But on a workday after daycare it would mean I can’t make or eat dinner, and I wouldn’t get to see my family at all. Not a tempting prospect.

The second problem is at 5am. Yes, very specifically 5am. We usually end nighttime feeding number 2 around 4am, and inevitably, Noisy Baby comes back at 5am. She’s not awake, she’s not hungry. She’s just Noisy Baby. Sometimes I can ignore her enough to doze, but most of the time I spend an hour lying there listening to her. And sometimes, like today, I end up in her room because she did actually wake up. 

I can’t tell you how difficult this 5am issue makes it for me to feel rested. Even if the earlier portions of the night were great, I feel so tired because of the way the night ends. 

On nights like this one, it is even worse. I couldn’t fall asleep after the first feeding of the night, so I slept for 3.5 hours, was awake for 3 hours feeding Ellen and then laying in bed, got up to feed Ellen (up for another 45 mins for that), went back to sleep for less than an hour, and then 5am hit, Noisy Baby arrived, and now I’m back in her room. It is now nearly 6am, I should be getting her back to sleep shortly, and then I’ll go to bed to wait for Lewis to wake up. His usual time is between 6 and 7. Then it is game on for both me and Kyle.

So you see, this 5am problem is really not great. And combined with the no-naps-when-it’s-noisy problem, I’m anticipating a rough transition back to work in a couple weeks.