This Sleep Regression is KILLING Me!

Here I am: smack dab in the middle of an eight month sleep regression. It's a Wednesday--I think--I don't know, everything is staring to go bleary on me. You see, I have a good sleeper on my hands. From the day she came home from the hospital, I've pretty much felt well rested leave-go the one off night or five. I bring this up not to rub it in, but to emphasize how awful this no sleep thing feels in light of the facts.

It's not that I haven't experienced a sleep regression before. We had one around four months too....but this one seems so much worse for some reason. Maybe it's because at four months you're still in the thick of the baby phase, having just come down off the newborn phase, and so it's just not that bad.  It's almost expected, in a way. Now, I'm barely able to scrape myself out of bed.

My generally good sleeping baby has been waking up about 20 million times a night, tossing and turning, sometimes sitting up, sometimes talking to me and husband, and then going back down. Oh, and we co-sleep, so we're getting it good this time around. This is week two. My dachshund, Oscar, seems to have picked up on the unrest and joined the party, getting in and out of bed at night, adding to the fray and when he does want to sleep, his spot of choice is between my knees. Yay.

I keep telling myself that the next day will be better, and sometimes it is, but all in all, these sleep regressions are for the birds. I am a monster without sleep. I am grumpy, unreasonable, generally irritable, and immune to caffeine. So THIS is what it's like to be without sleep? It's awful. Parents of bad sleeping children should seriously get a metal.

I'm trying to tell myself that this too will pass. I know it will. I google sleep regressions. I ask my co-sleeping friends on FaceBook if possibly she's giving cues that she's ready for her own space (and maybe she is...I won't rule it out completely.) But in the meantime, I'm trying not to be a sinking ship. Lack of sleep may be getting to me yet; I cried all day yesterday after I had a fight with my husband. If my wits had been at all about me, it just wouldn't have been that bad. Marital stress is exacerbated when you're running on empty. Or maybe I just needed a good cry.

I wish I had some sage words of advice for others experiencing this subject, but none come to me other than to grit your teeth and know it'll all pass. Also know that you are not alone. I feel your pain. I'm regressing, along with my daughter's sleep. I hang on to hope that tonight will be better--tomorrow I'll be less tired--because it's all I have. Someday this damned sleep regression WILL be a distant memory. And I'll be grateful. But today, I'm waiting patiently for nap time to approach so that I can get horizontal and maybe catch a few of those zzzzs that went flitting by last night.