20 Weeks: Freaking Out

I’ve been reading Mommy blogs, and it’s messing with my head. Yesterday I was reading some archives of a Mommy blogger writing about her newborn who wouldn’t nap, and all of a sudden I had a flashback to Jacob’s second month.

Jacob has always been a good sleeper, which I think of as Karma for what my body went through to get him into the world, and the six week aftermath (that’s all for a later post). However, his sleeping through the night at 7 weeks also meant that he was not the best napper in the world.

One day, Jacob woke up at 3:30 am and never went back to sleep. He would doze in my arms, but any time I tried to put him down in his Moses basket, he would start to scream. Josh’s school day ended at 3:05 pm and at 3:06, I called him and as soon as he picked up with phone, I didn’t even bother with hello: “Jacob has been up since 3:30 am.” He came straight home, thank God, and that was the worst day for a while. While I remembered this incident, I am only now revisiting what that felt like, that mixture of exhaustion, fear, frustration with this little being, and guilt about being frustrated with a little baby who didn’t know how to let himself fall asleep.

It might have helped to think about these things before getting pregnant, huh? But maybe that’s some sort of evolutionary thing to help us have subsequent children. I know that I can do this, but I’m having some visions of my poor future 2 ½ year old having to deal with psycho-mama and baby who won’t sleep.

Erm, Universe? I’d like my denial back please. PLEASE?!