Sleep

It's not that I'd forgotten how a newborn can disrupt the sleep pattern-- I guess I just thought I'd be better able to handle it this time. But sleep is tough to do without, even if you're prepared for the lack of it. I read on a website that the average newborn results in the loss of 450-700 hours of sleep for the parents in the first year. That works out to about an hour and a half a night on average. That might not sound like much for those of you who don't have kids, but when that 1.5 hours is split up into, say, six 15 minute segments a night, the normal sleep cycle is disrupted in a way that quickly begins to affect the waking hours.

According to another website, the only organ that really needs sleep, as opposed to "relaxed wakefulness," is the brain. All other organs can rest and repair while you are awake and relaxing.

Sadie is sleeping pretty well for a newborn (and better than Jake did at her age), but she still wakes up to feed usually three times a night. A few nights we've been rewarded with just one feeding, but on other nights, an upset tummy has kept us up more than we've slept.

What I'm getting at, is that lack of sleep is really starting to give Jake the upper hand here, and I think he's starting to realize it.

He's got a little laugh that's somewhere right between the "Ah-Ha!" of Bob Wills and the sarcastic "Ha Ha" of Nelson from the Simpsons. He seems to use it to add punctuation to any little act to reminds us that in our current state of grogginess we are no match for his cunning.

If this chart is correct, and it must be since I found it on the internet, we should see some relief over the next month or two. Until then, if you haven't heard from for a few days, please contact Jake and ask him to untie us.