The first eight weeks... or is it twelve?

I used to tell friends who became new mommies that the first month of a new baby was NOT the hardest... the second and third months were the hardest because 1) you no longer had sleep reserves on which to rely; and 2) you were coming down from your high.

My newest little one is seven weeks old and this advice has never been more true, especially now that it is compounded by having an energetic toddler as well. There have been mornings, like this one, where the little TanTan (pronounced with a short 'a') wakes up at 3 or 4am, refusing to sleep any longer in his bed. He then kvetches and cries on and off for the next 2-3 hours until the toddler wakes up, who has decided recently that the best time to wake up for the day is 5:30am (2 hours earlier than usual).

As expected, last month wasn't easy but month #2 hit me pretty hard. In fact, this morning I physically couldn't get out of bed until 11am. And that's saying a lot, considering I have a mild sleep disorder and have gotten accustomed to excessive daytime sleepiness.

Every morning since baby turned three weeks old (when he got on more of a schedule), all I do is grab him, bring him to bed, and nurse him from side to side for a few hours. But TanTan is growing, growing, growing so much that all he's done, for seven weeks, is eat immense amounts, sleep all day, poop, and spit up (thank you, dairy intolerance and acid reflux). He's not nearly as awake as ElyZ was when he was younger; then again, ElyZ only started really growing at 4.5 months. So TanTan literally sucks all the energy out of me on a nightly basis.

What I've been trying to remember, so far unsuccessfully (see my previous blog 'Memories'), is whether it was the second or the third month which was the most difficult. My only consolation is that the second month is almost over, so either it'll now improve or I'm halfway through the worst of it ... sigh.

My saving grace is my husband, who helps take care of the toddler in the morning before he drops him off at Gan and "speaks" for the baby, saying funny things. The light of my life is my crazy, early-rising toddler, ElyZ. He waves and says goodbye on the rough mornings; he comes home from Gan with a huge smile on his angelic face and his blonde hair is getting long and adorably out of control.

And it's not like there's much of a choice in this matter, so I'll just suck it up for another month and start recovering then.

At least he's super cute.


Update: At about 10 weeks, he started being more... reasonable. Granted, his sleep schedule disintegrated (darned three-month regression), but he became more loveable.