Motherhood and sleep

I am not a morning person by nature.  I like to stay in bed past 8am (or 9am if I really can have my way!).  If I wake early I enjoy staying in bed and watching some TV or reading a book while I ease into my day.  During the winter months - when the sun is not usually shining when my alarm goes off and when it's cold coming out from under my blankets - I prefer to hold off on a lot of conversation until I consume a warm glass of coffee.  During the summer months I tend to wake up easier and get going earlier since the sun is up and gives me energy.

I used to think that becoming a Mother would make me more of a morning person.  Most mothers that I know get up really early and have most of their to do list accomplished before the children are up and out of bed.  I figured it was just something that magically happens when you have little people around.  Plus, I thought children like to wake up early and drag their parent's out of bed!

Then I had my children and learned that you don't really get much sleep at all in the beginning.  Sleeping whenever the baby sleeps sounds like a great idea and I managed to do just that on occasion with baby Julia.  It didn't work as well with Emma since by then I was keeping up with a toddler.  As for the nights, Emma was never a great sleeper.  Julia started sleeping through the night at 10 weeks, but Emma was 3.5 years old before she started to sleep through the night a couple of times a week.  I would walk around in a haze a lot of mornings since I has so few consecutive hours of sleep.  It seemed that Emma's preferred sleeping time happened between 4 am and 11 am, but those weren't really the best hours for us to keep!  Julia has always slept great and it seems her preferred sleep hours are from 8pm - 8am.

I have a huge smile when I say that we've recently settled into a nice sleep pattern.  Usually it only requires one trip into Emma's room at night to flip her from her back to her belly when she cries.  We even have quite a few nights where there are no trips.  I'm crossing my fingers as I type this because I sure don't hope to jinx it!

On weekends it's usually me and the girls in the morning while Chris gets up at the crack of dawn to run.  The girls inherited my sleep gene and so we sleep a bit late.  Julia is often the first out of bed and comes running into my room (around 8am) where we talk and watch some tv.  Emma usually joins us a bit later when she calls me into her room to go and get her.  We sometimes read books and always fall into fits of giggles.  It's a great way to start the morning and really feeds my soul.

My version of Motherhood is a bit different than I expected.  I didn't magically turn into a morning person after the birth of my children.  I still seize the afternoon and evening much better than I seize the morning!  My mornings and so much else in my version of Motherhood is different than I expected.  But, different works for our family.  And I'm so proud Julia and Emma call me Mommy!

Thanks so much to my Mom for demonstrating what it means to be an amazing Mother!  You have always loved and supported me no matter what....even during my challenging years ;-)  Now that I'm a Mother I can more fully appreciate you.  I never knew it was so hard because you always made it look so easy.


Thanks to my Mother-in-law, too, for accepting me into your family and son's life with grace and love.  It truly is a pleasure to have you as my Mom-in-law!

Happy {belated} Mother's Day to all the Mothers reading this!