About that sense of accomplishment...

And then there are the days when I feel like I might never feel rested again. Just when I wrote about a sense of accomplishment, a sense of starting to figure things out, we have a night and day like the past twenty-four hours. Now, Jupiter has not been that difficult. It's been nothing like the dark days, the growth spurts when he absolutely refuses to sleep and absolutely refuses to stop fussing and crying. No, he was actually quite delightful this morning. He had a bath and a couple of hours of alert time with both Jay and I.

But by now, 4 PM, I am starting to feel the strain of last night. Jupiter did two new things last night: he slept for two 3+ hour stretches (bonus!) but after the second one he decided to be awake and I had to rock and shush him for an hour. Also, he took that first 3.5 hour sleep from 8:00-11:30. Sounds great, but I didn't anticipate such a long sleep so I didn't go to bed until I got tired of waiting for him to wake up and eat, around 10:30. So I got one hour of sleep until he woke up the first time, then three hours, then lost a long and tiring hour, and then only got one more hour at the end. That's five hours for me, most of them fitful. And when Jupiter wakes for the final time around 6:30, I want to participate in his alert time so I don't stay in bed even though Jay could take over once he's fed and happy.

So now he's fussy for whatever reason and won't go down for a nap. Perhaps too much stimulation with both daddy and mama being home all day, trying out his new attempts to smile and coo. The issue with this is two-fold:

1) The confusion I feel about just how much sleeping he should be doing. There are averages, but no baby is average and he sleeps different amounts on different days. Also, as he gets older he will sleep less and I have no idea when that shift will take place. So am I trying to get him to sleep against his will? Does he need to sleep? His fussiness would indicate that he does, but who knows?

2) I am exhausted and feeling overwhelmed. Thankfully Jay is home today so I was able to hand Jupiter to him a few minutes ago, to take over the soothing duties. But it's times like this that I find myself missing sleep, exasperated by the idea that this fussy baby might be fussy for quite a while longer. Like, months. On a day when I am better rested (there are no "well rested" days any more) the fussy baby doesn't bother me. In fact, I feel even more rewarded than usual when I can figure out what he needs, even if it results in a constant and tiring barrage of attempts to please him. I don't mind. He's wonderful. But on days like today I feel a little despondent.

You might be thinking that I should be napping instead of writing this post. And I'm going to sleep right now. But taking five minutes to write this has made me feel slightly less insane.

Thank you and good night.