![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
relentless optimism
Nov. 5th, 2013 04:48 pmI'd never really thought of myself as a optimist or a pessimist until grad school, particularly after we moved to Amsterdam, when I became an optimist out of self-preservation, given the relentless pessimism of both my husband and my supervisor. The trend seems to have continue, at least with respect to child-rearing. No matter what evidence I may have to the contrary, every single night, I go to bed and think "maybe tonight I'll get a good night's sleep!"
The problem is, it turns out true just often enough for me to continually be able to think that tonight's the night. For 8 months or so now, Gwen has pretty consistently slept 7-7, with half hour fluctuations on either side of either number. Not bad at all! However, even a half fluctuation early on the waking side of things really kills me -- and if it's *gasp* 40 minutes, or more, before 7:00, I lose all hope in the future and faith in humanity.
Daylight savings in Europe ends a week earlier than in the US, so we dealt with that two weekends ago -- though she transitioned to the later bed-time right away, this did not correlate to a later wake-up time, instead, it correlated with a half hour or so earlier wake-up time; there were a few mornings when she was up at 5:30/5:45 (kill me now). After about three mornings of that I started putting her to bed at 6:30 instead of 7:00, and that helped tremendously, but even though we're still erring on the early side for bed, she's still rarely sleeping until 7:00. When she gets up before 6:30, I've been trying to put her back to bed; if she won't stay in bed, I'll try bringing her into bed with us. The latter rarely works, since she squirms and wiggles -- but at least she doesn't talk, which is a plus. But occasionally the putting back to bed works; Saturday, she woke up around 5:50, I put her back to bed, she was up again around 6:10, put her back to bed again -- and then she slept until 8:25! (Of course, we then paid for it with a late and short afternoon nap).
This morning, she was up and at the baby gate (we don't have a door to our bedroom, just a gate) at 4:50, which is extremely unusual. I'm not sure she was even entirely awake, and I was pretty confident I'd get her to go back to sleep if I tucked her back in. Sure enough, when I next heard her peremptory "mama!" at the gate, it was a little after 7:00!
I'd totally go back to waking up once in the middle of the night if it meant I didn't have to get out of bed until 7:00.
Then again, I can't complain too much. My sister hasn't gotten 8 hours worth of unbroken sleep in nearly 9 years! (And she's got at least another 2 years to go, I don't think I've mentioned here yet, but I've got another niece or nephew on the way in spring!)
The problem is, it turns out true just often enough for me to continually be able to think that tonight's the night. For 8 months or so now, Gwen has pretty consistently slept 7-7, with half hour fluctuations on either side of either number. Not bad at all! However, even a half fluctuation early on the waking side of things really kills me -- and if it's *gasp* 40 minutes, or more, before 7:00, I lose all hope in the future and faith in humanity.
Daylight savings in Europe ends a week earlier than in the US, so we dealt with that two weekends ago -- though she transitioned to the later bed-time right away, this did not correlate to a later wake-up time, instead, it correlated with a half hour or so earlier wake-up time; there were a few mornings when she was up at 5:30/5:45 (kill me now). After about three mornings of that I started putting her to bed at 6:30 instead of 7:00, and that helped tremendously, but even though we're still erring on the early side for bed, she's still rarely sleeping until 7:00. When she gets up before 6:30, I've been trying to put her back to bed; if she won't stay in bed, I'll try bringing her into bed with us. The latter rarely works, since she squirms and wiggles -- but at least she doesn't talk, which is a plus. But occasionally the putting back to bed works; Saturday, she woke up around 5:50, I put her back to bed, she was up again around 6:10, put her back to bed again -- and then she slept until 8:25! (Of course, we then paid for it with a late and short afternoon nap).
This morning, she was up and at the baby gate (we don't have a door to our bedroom, just a gate) at 4:50, which is extremely unusual. I'm not sure she was even entirely awake, and I was pretty confident I'd get her to go back to sleep if I tucked her back in. Sure enough, when I next heard her peremptory "mama!" at the gate, it was a little after 7:00!
I'd totally go back to waking up once in the middle of the night if it meant I didn't have to get out of bed until 7:00.
Then again, I can't complain too much. My sister hasn't gotten 8 hours worth of unbroken sleep in nearly 9 years! (And she's got at least another 2 years to go, I don't think I've mentioned here yet, but I've got another niece or nephew on the way in spring!)
