Law Students

On the Verge

By Anonymous

This morning, when I got up to get a cruelly cheerful Landon from his crib at 5:30, I had a single clear thought: I am about to have a breakdown- physical, emotional, both- I'm not sure. But I don't think my body is going to make it through Landon's first year of life unscathed. This morning I was so tired my body ached from the inside. My eyes burned to open and close. My legs shook when I leaned over his crib. I seriously don't know how we're going to keep caring for a baby who does not sleep.

On Tuesday Landon seemed to feel great post-surgery. He was perky, ate and drank well, and went to bed at his usual 7:30. But then he was up off and on after 4, and up permanently after 6. JP didn't get home from work until nearly 11, so we didn't go to bed until about 11:30. I have insomnia, and it always take a good hour for me to fall asleep- plus, I'm a very light sleeper so even when JP gets up from Landon (as he did from 4 until nearly 6), I'm not fully sleeping. All that adds up to some very small number of hours of rest (like 4ish). Last night Landon went to bed at 7:30 and was up from 2-3:30 AM, 4 AM, and then 5:30 AM until we left for daycare. I don't know what to do. JP is amazing and even though he's working long hours he still gets up at least half the time. I couldn't ask for more help from him. Unfortunately my body just doesn't sleep well - even before there was a baby stealing my sleep, my own body kept it from me for hours at a time.

I expected to be tired for the first few months of his life. I didn't expect to be getting even less sleep at nearly 9 months. And he's not just waking up for a bottle and going back down, he's waking up and staying up. I believe in letting a healthy baby cry it out at this age so that they can get a good night's sleep, but with all the ear infection pain, we couldn't do that. And now he could still have some fluid in his ears and I don't know if his low glucose levels could be contributing to the nighttime fussiness and thirst. Does he just think he's hungry because he's used to having a nighttime bottle when he's sick? Or is he actually hungry because his body isn't processing his food correctly? I DON'T KNOW and I'm way too tired to think about it. I do know that when I hear his wail at around 2 AM, I want to cry too.

And there's just a little bit of stress in other areas of my life. I think I'm supposed to be a law student at a school where the Socratic Method is still heavily used 3L year and no class is anywhere close to easy. I'm taking Advanced Corporations: Mergers and Acquisitions, Environmental Law, Legal Profession, and the second half of my Law & Politics Workshop. I spent all day yesterday on the phone with our mortgage lender, two of Landon's doctors, and various homeowners insurance agents. The daily to-do list is long and generally has nothing to do with law school reading or the substantial paper I really, really need to start working on. So, yeah, I'm definitely on the verge of some kind of meltdown.

Landon, on the other hand, is doing fantastic during the daylight hours and gets exponentially more cheerful and fun every day. The cuteness and his newfound ability to give hugs (wonderful, clingy hugs) help ease the pain of exhaustion, but I think JP and I are both nearing our physical limit for sleeplessness.

Full post as published by Lag Liv on April 03, 2008 (boomark / email).