Small things for a good day: sleep, not my own

My little family traveled to LA for a family reunion a few weeks ago. We were really looking forward to seeing old friends and family. And we were actually looking forward to our babe getting used to Pacific time. The East coast babe went to bed at 545/6pm and woke up at 4am. Not sustainable. So we traveled and he was a champ on the plane. He even did good for the first few nights of sleep, although we had to pull him into bed. Sleep teaching knowledge says basically do whatever to survive while traveling. It's a new environment, new time zone for you and the babe. It can be tough.

But it was over 2 weeks of tough. Somewhere very early in the trip our kid started to get up every hour and a half. Which meant I had to be up every hour and a half. When your cousins and brothers are right next door, it's not the ideal place to let you kid cry and you feel bad anyway because it's all so new. And because he's a champ with all the strange faces (which happen to be his extended family) all during the day. So in true mama-bad-ass fashion I was up with him a lot. And nursed him to sleep in bed a lot. And may be he was teething because he did drool a lot but isn't that always the excuse? Then when we got home he was jet lagged and a bit sick, so we let it continue.

Just last night we let him cry a little. Insert heart break here. But we had to. He wasn't even going to sleep after I'd go in to help him once, twice, thrice! It was crazy. So it was a tough night. But then for some strange reason today his first two naps were like dreams. He went straight down and slept for an hour and a half for each. The third nap is not so good, but that's not the point. Without all the crying and all the drama about how are we gonna get this kid to sleep, I felt so rejuvenated! Even though I haven't slept more than an hour in weeks and last night was no different. Because there was no drama around sleep today I actually felt like I could go on. And I could be a happy mom and may be, kind of do this mama thing. It's the little things, isn't it? Okay, you're right. Sleep is a major thing.