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This week I discovered how hard looking after a child really is and I can safely say that I do not want one of my own any time soon!
For the last three days and two nights I was in charge of baby Liam. It was my job to ensure that he was fed, clothed, entertained, clean and happy for 60 hours in a row. Day one went down without a hitch, after all both Liam and I like to play during the day, it was when the evening started that I began to realise how hard a mother actually has to work!
By 9pm I had managed to get Liam into bed, fed and wrapped in his swaddle blanket with his sleep sheep playing white noise to sooth him to sleep - so far so good. Now if all went according to plan then he should sleep through the night until 5am, so that's 8 hours sleep, I can handle that. However, I should have realised that things don't usually go as they are supposed to.
On night one I was woken up twice, once at 12 and once at 5am, but this was my own fault. By 8 pm Liam is usually getting a little sleepy and tends to want to nod off early. If we were to let him go to sleep at 8 it means that he will wake up at 3 or 4 am, so the idea is to make him wait until nine to sleep. But when he is cranky we usually let him doze until bed time, however it is important to ensure that the baby is properly awake before putting him to bed otherwise he doesn't eat enough to last him the night. I didn't actually wake him up enough, but in my defense, do you know how hard it is to wake a baby who has fallen asleep for the night?! Furthermore, when you wake up at 5am the day becomes rather long, particularly when you have to entertain a little person who cannot actually do all that much.
Finally, day two had ended and I was preparing for night two. This time I made sure that Liam was properly awake before I tried to put him to bed. However, this time Liam was a little too cheerful, so as I tried to give him his bottle all I got from him was smiles and giggles (very cute but not what I wanted!) At this rate I was probably going to fall asleep before Liam did!!
On night two I was woken up every two hours (groan!) The first time was not Liam but Scooter who was sleeping in my room. At 11 pm she decided to bark her head off, scaring me silly (and obviously waking me up.) Then the rest of the evening was devoted to being woken up by Liam who wanted an assortment of things from food to his pacifier or just to be rocked back to sleep. Part of the problem was that I still had to make him a bottle when he woke up (and the water just couldn't heat up fast enough!) - in instances like this breast feeding is just so much easier! When morning finally arrived I felt horrible - I was tired and cranky and finding it very hard to think of fun things for this cheerful little person to do (he certainly seemed to feel a lot better than I did!) I can not imagine how parents do this every night for months on end without a break and just when they are back to sleeping 9 hours a night, what do they go and do? They have another one!! When I did finally get Liam settled and he was happy playing with one of his toys I decided to lie on the couch and just close my eyes for a few minutes until Liam was ready to move on to something new. I had managed to wake up every time this child had cried during the past two nights so I was confident that I would hear when he got upset this time. Big mistake, false confidence, call it what you will, all I know is I fell asleep and did not hear a thing until Paul (who also lives with us) came out of his room wanting to know if there was any reason that the child was crying!
Now I understand what my parents went through - and they did it three times! However, despite being woken up a number of times each night and being very, very tired, I found that I could forget all of this when the first thing that greets you in the morning is a beautiful, happy little smile. Perhaps that is why my parents did it and perhaps that is why I will be willing to (one day) give up my sleep for a crying little bundle.
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