Whatever Gets You Through the Night
One of the issues I dealt with during the years I was raising my large family of 12 children was tendency of infants to awaken in the middle of the night, and my inability to fall back asleep with ease. Once I was up, I was up, and it would take so long for me to fall back asleep that by the time I was nodding off, my baby would be crying to be fed once again.
Well and truly exhausted
It's just the way I am. I can be well and truly exhausted, and it will still take forever for me to fall asleep. Sleep doesn't come to me on its own. I have to cajole sleep; to wine and dine the state of slumber that is always just past my reach. I will read, have a soothing mug of tea with milk and honey, or take a very long, hot bath. Caring for babies every few hours just doesn't work for me, sleep wise. Exhausted I may be, but sleep, Ha!
For this reason, I really wanted my husband to be the one to get out of bed, change the baby, and bring her to me to nurse, while I dozed, half asleep. There was a great deal of logic to this plan. My husband can fall asleep at the drop of a hat. This can be very annoying- I'll be telling him about my day, or discussing an issue that is important to me, and boom, he's asleep. In fact, sometimes he will fall asleep mid-sentence- his own sentence. Too bad the babies never took after him in that respect.
My biological clock ticks
So, I schemed and connived to get my husband to be the one who would perform the middle of the night scut work. In fact, as my biological clock ticks ever nearer to its end, I often hint that I would like to have just one more baby. "No way," says Hubby, "I'm too old to get up in the middle of the night."
