Friday, August 14, 2009

Sleep Deprivation

I don't know how parents of kids who wake up every 2-3 hours at night do it. I am miserable. I have a permanent headache. Now I'm having trouble waking up for Aiden's ONE night feeding and when my alarm goes off in the morning. Travis and I have been at each other's throats a little lately because we are both exhausted. Travis works hard labor, so he REALLY needs his rest. I'm just suffering from plain old sleep deprivation. I've been getting 5-6 hours of sleep a night. Travis can't help me during the night because I'm the only one who can provide the breastfeeding. He could get up to change Aiden's diaper and hand him off to me, but I'd have to get up to wake Travis up, and that completely defeats the purpose of him helping me in the first place.

It's interesting to see how much I've changed physically since I got pregnant. By the end of my pregnancy, I chose the elevator over the stairs every day. Otherwise I would have to leave for work 20 minutes early to make up for all the breather breaks I would have to take in the stairwell. I also was not allowed to carry heavy boxes. These two issues equate to some serious muscle atrophy for Nikki.

My lab at work is currently moving to a new location on the floor above where we currently reside. That means I spent all week moving things off the shelves and out of the drawers from one lab to the other. I went from bending over to pick up my infant being the extent of my physical activity to moving an entire lab. I'm not used to using the stairs, let alone bending over and squatting repeatedly to move items.

Another weird thing? I'm not used to wearing shoes. LOL! The entire time I was gone for maternity leave, I relied soley on flip flops. Plus, I was unable to wear the vast majority of my shoes, including all my ballet flats, for the last few months of pregnancy. I am now limited to tennis shoes for a while because of the blisters that have formed on my heels. I can't tell if the soreness on the top of my feet is from the pressure of wearing shoes, or muscle soreness from moving stuff all week. Either way, I've turned into a weanie!

I didn't realize how much recovering I still had to do.

3 comments:

Jessica said...

There is NOTHING WRONG WITH FLIP FLOPS. Not a single thing. No shame.

King of New York Hacks said...

flip flops are ok...a pogo stick works very well.

Kara said...

My husband and I rarely fight but we had some knock-down drag-outs during my son's first few months. Sleep deprivation will do that to a couple! It gets way better once they hit 3 months and become a little easier. Hang in there and good luck!

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