4 Month Sleep Regression

There are many things that I'm learning about this child that no one has ever told me, or found it worth while to explain! Other mom's may know what I'm talking about when it comes to this (engorgement anyone?!), especially the 4 month sleep regression. Perhaps it is just me that did not know these things?! Shaley was a good sleeper for 2 months of her still short life. The first 3 weeks were horrible in the sleep 'department'. Then we had a wonderful stretch of sleeping from 8 pm to 1 or 2 am, and then down till 5 am!!! That was an incredible time. Since then we've hit the 3 month growth spurt which caused us to wake up every 1-2 hours and sometimes multiple times in the same hour. Ugh. Just after getting through that stage things returned to normal...for a week. Her 3 month growth spurt lasted 3 weeks (her sleeping patterns didn't return to normal for that long). Now we've reached what I was surprised to learn, the 4 month sleep regression stage.

Why didn't I hear of this earlier?! Everyone I've talked to has said it gets easier after the 3 month growth spurt. Things aren't the same with every child. I know I should know this and expect that ever child is different, but sometimes you just follow with hopes that it rings true. Some days I would like to believe that there is a conspiracy out there to block such unpleasant events in the early stages of a child's life, just so women continue to have children. Granted, these thoughts only occur on nights where I've had little sleep!

One thing that hasn't changed is that I'm very thankful for that little girl, and I'm still thankful for her sleep patterns because I know it could be worse. We don't wake up every 2 hours most nights, and I know there are mom's out there that do those short bursts of sleep every night. One common bit of advice that does, however, stick with me is that even the worst days and nights will go away with time. Children grow up, and even though us mom's don't always think so, it's a good thing that they do. We want them to grow up and have the best life possible, even though we want them to stay babies forever! What the contradiction.

Balancing Time

I think the hardest part of being a new parent is balancing time between your husband and your child, or children. It seems I have slowly lost my husband in the mix. Between me being a full time mom, a job in itself, and my husband trying to make up the difference, we've spent little time with each other. Because I don't have any monetary income I would feel guilty spending money on getting a babysitter for one night. I cannot justify that expense until I start having some sort of income. Because of this guilt our relationship seems to have been where the impact of this has happened. We spend our days going through the motions, and although things aren't bad (we've definitely gone through more ups and downs while I was working) things are just kind of blah.

Being a mom has been great, but future mom's beware, it comes with it's own set of difficulties. Most people may not get into the downside of having children, but sometimes we need to hear that we're not alone in this! More work needs to be put into a relationship once there are children present, at least that's what I have found. Perhaps this is not true for all relationships, but I can only share what personal experience has taught me. There are more ups and downs that just in a wife/husband relationship, but that's another post! Children can bring much joy to your life, there is no doubt from what I have found. I was a skeptic on this before I had Shaley.  But now I can easily get lost in her loving personality and her cute little toes and put the relationship I had with my husband in the background.

This is wrote as a reminder to myself and possibly an insight to think of for a future mom. Sometimes the relationships we already have need to be worked on and not left stagnant.