Pregnant women spend a lot of time reading books, blogs, Web sites and anything else we can get our anxious little hands on that will help prepare us for the baby that’s about to wreak havoc joy on our lives. I think more than anything, we are particularly interested in learning about sleep. How can we get our baby to sleep, and for long, uninterrupted stretches of time? We’ve all heard the horror stories, and we hope and pray and beg and plead that we’ll be spared. Maybe if we arm ourselves with enough knowledge we will successfully avoid the fates that others– others who we like to presume were less proactive than us–were dealt.
Perhaps the joke’s on us. We think we’re so smart with our knowledge and our seeking of the knowledge. Meanwhile, little bundle o’ joy is busy plotting his or her own sleep training—on us. Over the last couple weeks I’ve noticed a pattern emerge in my third trimester. Not only am I waking up every few hours, it seems I’m waking up at the same few hours every night. You could set an alarm clock to it. In bed between 10:30 and 11, followed by a wake-up trip to the bathroom at 2, followed by a brief fifteen minutes or so of wakefulness at 4, culminating with a final wake-up call at 6:30. Am I subconsciously waking up when the baby’s waking up? Are these the hours he’ll keep when he arrives? If so, I suppose I don’t have much to complain about; I’ve heard of worse.
But I’m amazed. There is so much that your body does to get you ready for this baby. Most you barely notice. You start covering your stomach in crowded spaces – your first taste of parental protectiveness. You find yourself saying ‘baby likes it’ (even though you have absolutely no idea what baby, in fact, likes) – your first dip into the pool of selflessness. It’s less important what you like these days; as long as baby’s happy, you’re happy. And now, your body is adapting to short spans of sleep. You’re learning how to wake up and fall back asleep, over and over again. Eight straight hours of uninterrupted sleep is lost for now. It’s been tabled for another time. Slowly, baby is getting you trained.
Tags: I'm going to be a mom?!
