Baby Chickadee is sleeping through the night. Mostly. She doesn‘t sleep through the entire night when we lay her down at 8 o‘clock, but she sleeps a solid eight hours before waking up hungry. A quick top-off of food in the tummy and then she’s back asleep until 7 or 8 in the morning. I can handle this. Waking up once in the middle of the night has changed my world.
Now I get to sleep from 11 at night until 4 in the morning and it is GLORIOUS. I had no idea how tired I really was when that baby woke up every two to three hours. Of course I knew there was a time when I didn’t walk around half asleep, yearning for coffee or a nap or both throughout the day. Now I can go the entire day without a nap–without planning for a nap, without trying to talk myself out of taking a nap–now I just exist happily without one. At the end of the day I look back and am pleasantly surprised I’ve made it that far in a good mood. Sleep is important.
And since I’ve started sleeping and hitting my REM sleep I have also felt the renewed interest in exercise. Pre-pregnancy, pre-Baby Chicadee’s arrival, I looked forward to taking walks. But with the lack of quality sleep I could not muster the desire. When all my energy went to simply staying awake and being nice to my kids I could not even summon the urge to exercise, other than the occasional freak-out in front of my mirror when some article of clothing didn’t fit right.
Then a couple weeks ago I tried on my spring/summer clothes and they didn’t fit. That realization, along with my fantastic nights of sleep, pushed me to the gym. And I love it.