Sleep...overrated?

Sleep begets sleep, right? I've thought about that theory a lot since having Micah. And while sometimes I don't always agree, more times than not I find myself chanting that phrase...especially in times of consistent lack of sleep in our household. Christmas vacation was a rough time for us - all of us! With 5 teeth (2 molars and 3 canines) coming in in a matter of 3 weeks, we were in for sleeping chaos. Top it off with traveling for the majority of that time, and Micah was all out of sorts. How do you recover from a downward spiral? That, I still am unsure of, but little by litter I think it's possible to dig out.

Since then, we have regained our schedule and he is doing much better, although I will say naps are still at a minimum. I am usually happy when I can get anywhere over 45 minutes of a nap. It's not much of a break during the day, but I have come to accept that Micah is not a long napper. He has always been like this, since he was a newborn, and I have to be grateful for the 11-12 hours of sleep we get at night! Prior to vacation we were getting around 1.5 hours fairly consistently, and I'm hoping we get back there before baby comes!, but I can't complain when I'm getting such solid night sleep.

That's why, when he was up for 3 hours last night, I realize all the more how grateful I am for his consistently wonderful nighttime sleep. Call it another tooth coming in, or growing pains, or a nightmare that really scared him, but whatever it was from about 1-4am, Micah was awake. I tried comforting him and laying him back down. I tried giving him a pacifier (which he doesn't usually have during nighttime sleep). I tried bringing him into our bed. All 3 were big failures. Once in our bed, he was pretty good, just not sleeping. He rolled onto his back and started practicing his vocabulary.

"Mama?" "Dada?" "Di-ddy?" "Di-ddy gone." "No Dada." "No Nana." "No Papa." "Bye-bye." "Read book?" "No hat." "Ocks, coke, oosh?" (socks, coat, shoes?) and on and on...it was actually quite endearing, but I knew if we were going to be able to function at all in the morning we both had to get some sleep! So after praying with him and singing him a few songs, I placed him back in his crib. Crying, silence, more crying, silence. Two hours later there was finally continued silence and I knew he was back in a deep sleep.

Why it took so long, I'll never know. And I'm praying for a solid night tonight so that he can be well rested tomorrow. Christian's been gone since last Saturday (poor guy - coming home late, late tonight, on his birthday no less!) and I'd love for Micah to be in a great mood for his arrival home. Regardless of what happens though, I definitely believe and value the necessity of sleep and don't at all find it overrated!! I'll know that even more in a few months when I'm up 3-4 times a night with a newborn :).