Babys First Year Blog
4 AM in the Time of Babies
4 am is a sort of strange time when you have babies. It is generally the last feeding that they drop and it is the time when are most aware just how late it is, but how close it is to being way to early to function. Cody had been getting sick so he told me he was going to need a morning to really sleep in so when I heard gleeful squawks of waking baby through the monitor I knew my time was up and that it was time to start the day. Cody was downstairs in the kitchen when Addie came in asking for socks, so I knew it had to be after 7:15.
Oh man, it was so dark.
Turns out Cody wasn’t in the kitchen…he was asleep next to me. But I wouldn’t find that out until later.
I grabbed my book and stumbled into Vivi’s room. Man, I was tired. I grabbed the happy baby from her crib and began to read to her (we read every morning for a half an hour, more on that later.) Next thing I knew the door was opening to reveal a fully dressed six year old wanting some cereal. “What time is it!?” Absolutely sure she had missed the bus.
“Four something.”
“Why are you up?”
“Can’t sleep, so I got ready for school.”
“AT FOUR AM?”
At this point the baby realized she had tricked me and I felt foolish for not actually checking the clock. I did my best to shuffle both girls off back into dreamland before the time really came that we all needed to be up and functioning. I KNEW there was a reason I was so tired. I also knew that it seemed a little too dark.
But babies at 4 am…they have this way of bewitching you.
In Vivi’s early weeks I never looked at the actual time, I had one of those ItzBeen timers that keeps track of time between feedings and diaper changes. Somehow knowing it had been two hours since she last ate was less grinding than knowing it was two in the morning. That timer was the best $24 investment in those first few weeks of tiny baby life.
Do you check the clock when you wake up? Or do you stumble around in a half awake haze until the sun comes up like I do?
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3 Comments
Maude commented on Nov 05 11 at 3:37 pmI keep my iPod under my pillow, so i can always know what time it is!
Koreen commented on Nov 06 11 at 6:52 amI don’t always want to know what the time is. Sometimes knowing you are up again for a feed an hour after you last put the baby down really isn’t worth it. Other times I really want to know how much time till the sun comes up. Its pretty helpful that my baby wakes at 4am in the mood for conversation and laughs.
jennifer commented on Nov 07 11 at 11:24 amI love my Itzbeen timer…
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