Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Daylight Savings Time + Two babies = Seventh circle of hell

I used to look forward to the whole "fall back" thing. An extra hour of sleep? HELL YES! I'd go to sleep at the usual time only to wake up the next morning feeling more refreshed than I had in ages.

If you're a parent, you know that shiz is totally over.

Normally, Hank and Johnny wake up around 6:30am or so. After the time change? 5:30am. Except that Hank decided THAT WASN'T EARLY ENOUGH and woke up at 5am on Sunday. Granted, he was being sweet and adorable, so I didn't mind too much.

After that, it's all been downhill. Since Hank woke up so early that morning, he wanted to go to bed for the night at 4:30pm. Normally he's in bed between 6:30pm and 7:00pm. I wasn't about to let him go to bed that early only to wake up at 3:30am. So I kept him up and tried to get him to take an extra nap... which resulted in 20 minutes of extra sleep and two hours of extra screaming and crying. Now, Hank is an angel baby, so imagine my shock when he begins screaming at the top of his lungs around 5:30pm on Sunday... I thought he had Ebola or something. But no. No hemorrhagic fever, just overtiredness. He eventually went to sleep, but it was fitful at best, resulting in me getting up to soothe him every hour or so in the night. The next day he was grumpy, out-of-sorts and all around fussy from being so tired... and I was too. Johnny also hasn't been sleeping as much (also because the recent transition to his big boy bed) so his fuse was short.

I think we hit rock bottom yesterday afternoon when I took the humidifier away from Johnny and he had a meltdown from frustration and exhaustion. Johnny's cries woke up Hank, who then proceeded to scream and cry from frustration and exhaustion. And there I was, in the middle of it and feeling helpless, so I cried from frustration and exhaustion.

However, I think we're on the upswing. Hank has napped normally today and at his usual times while Johnny went down relatively easily for his nap and has been a good boy all day. Hopefully this means that Hank will sleep longer than 45 minute segments and go back to his normal happy self.

Daylight Savings Time: Suck it.

2 comments:

  1. dude, this sounds awful, you have my sincere sympathies. i didn't have to do much for DST since we were up all night puking. the time difference sorted itself out, but i wouldn't recommend this strategy overall.

    i overheard a couple of moms at the park this past week talking about how having one kid is "so easy. it's like being single!" despite my complaints, i can see how true this is. you are a champ.

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  2. Yeah, two kids sounds rough. And the roughest part being the whole sleep thing. Don't know how that part works!

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