The Sleepy Baby

Perhaps I didn't record it on this blog at the time, because I tend to try to present a carefully curated and rosy view of parenthood that doesn't involve admitting that I'm about to have a nervous breakdown, but Margaret's first few weeks of life were very stressful and sleep-deprived, and I was pretty certain that I wasn't going to be able to hack this parenting thing.  She didn't like being put down, and she didn't like being swaddled, but she really didn't like not being swaddled.  I went to bed at 7 and left Leo holding her on the couch until she grudgingly gave up and went to sleep, and then she was up every 2 hours or so to eat.

When Ellie was a week old, I asked the pediatrician if there was something wrong with her, because she slept so much.  When she told me that that was normal, I thought that I should have a retroactive discussion about Margaret's lack of sleep.

Will, it appears, is more to Ellie's way of thinking than Margaret's.  He's a good little sleeper, both at night (I've gotten at least a 4-hour stretch out of him every night since he was a week old, and he's pushing 5 and a half some nights), and during the day.  He seems to have decided to have two alert periods, one in the morning and one in the evening, with a lot of high-quality napping in between.  Of course, during both of his awake periods, he seems to feel the need to graze, so there are a couple of hours at each end of the day when I am pinned to the couch.  We will see how that works out.  I feel that other people may think they need things from me from here on out.

One of the nice things about Will is how good he is at relaxing.  It's like we have a boneless baby sometimes.