Through the Seasons

Why am I so tired?

I admit the first little bit with Asher was crazy busy.  I was running on about 3 hours of broken sleep a day.  But finally Jonathan and I have worked out a system where we take care of Asher efficiently and get back to sleep (when he lets us).  We’ve been getting about 6 hours of broken sleep a day. 

After Asher’s 2-week doctor’s appointment the doctor cleared us to let him go 6 hours between feedings.  That’s from the beginning of one feeding to the beginning of the next.  So last night I ended up sleeping for an hour, feeding him, sleeping for 5 hours, feeding him, then sleeping another hour.  I got 7 hours of sleep in 3 stretches.  That’s pretty good!

But each afternoon about the same time (around 4pm) I get really tired and want a nap.  I also want to get things done and that has won out every single day so far.  I guess I need to listen to my body and rest for a bit.  But even without that nap I should be fine on 7 hours of sleep.  Everyone needs a different amount of sleep I hear and I’m on the high end, preferring 8-9 hours a night so I’m under what I’d like to have but still - 7 hours is totally do-able – I’d think…

So here I am at 9pm dying.  My eyes are stinging.  I can hardly think.  I almost feel like I’m ”buzzing”.  I’m having a hard time holding my head up.  It makes no sense.  I don’t think I’m overly active during the day – for a normal person anyway.  Does giving birth and healing from it really take that much out of you?  They say you can’t catch up on sleep but can a lack of sleep build on itself from night to night?  Who knows.

All I know for sure is that I’m more tired than I would normally be on this amount of rest.  I guess, as usual, I’m expecting too much of myself.  I guess I’ll start obeying my body’s need for an afternoon nap.  I’m apparently going to have to.