On the subject of sleep deprivation

Back, because I need a place to vent my touchy feelies, and I don't need anyone to read it. I wouldn't think anyone looks here anymore, so it should be a safe space for me. I don't care if someone does read it, I just don't need to broadcast, as posting elsewhere may accomplish. I'm not trying to garner attention, I'm trying to get rid of my frustration.

So. My touchy - feely issue of the moment is my completely pathetic inability to nap. Teddy*, my unbelievably sweet and simultaneously fucking awful child, wouldn't sleep for his dear old mommy last night. At all.

Sidebar: I knew coming into this whole baby situation that sleep was going to be challenging. Everyone says you don't get to sleep. What I didn't realize was, they were not exaggerating. When they said you never get to sleep, they actually meant you never get to sleep. It's not that you get poor sleep, or short sleep, or disturbed sleep, it's that you don't get to sleep. PERIOD.

Last night was worse than average, in that he woke up and fussed about 8 times in 8 hours. I'm not sure of the actual number, because I have a tendancy to avoid thinking during the wee hours of the morning. Also, sometimes when I am very, very tired, my brain invents these fantasies and I wholly believe they are true. Last night, as I was breastfeeding at ohmyfuckinggod o'clock, my mind told me it was so particularly bad because Teddy was feeding in the Italian way now, whereas previously he had exclusively been French. Do you know what that means? I sure as shit do not, but it was the only explanation I had.

Teddy is napping now in his swing. It has been almost two hours, which is really good for him, despite him being eight weeks old and my doctor assuring me that he should be sleeping in longer stretches now (the longest he has ever slept, ever in his life, was about four hours, and that has happened exactly once). My difficulty lies in the old advice of sleeping when the baby sleeps. I am physically laying down right now. I had my eyes closed for half an hour or so. But I cannot sleep.

I. Cannot. Sleep.

My brain needs to list all the things I could (should) be doing instead: the laundry, sweeping, cleaning the bathrooms, calling the doctor, figuring out super, sterilizing the breast pump, etc. I have never been able to nap during the day, and it certainly hasn't changed just because I have a baby now. One of life's little cruelties, but it effects so much damage once night sleeping is no longer an option.

That's all for now. Here's hoping for sweet, sweet slumber tonight.

*codename, for no fucking reason at all