My daughter was born almost four months ago. Before her birth I was a self-proclaimed sleep fanatic. I would happily get about 9 hours of sleep a night and wake-up to a large cup of caffeinated coffee, leading to a productive day of work. Now, I only dream (when I actually get REM sleep) of 9 hours. Most nights my schedule is as follows:
7:00pm Daughter goes to bed
9:30pm Cluster feed her
12:30am First night feed
3:30am Second night feed
6:00am Daughter wakes-up
The biggest issue is not the total time which is about 8.5 hours, but the short interval (usually about 2.5 hours) between each feed and the fact that I can't drink a lot of caffeine. I am a less productive writer, both in terms of the number of pages and efficiency/productivity during my writing time. I do worry that this will hurt my overall productivity as perceived by those who evaluate my tenure portfolio, but I don't see any way of getting more sleep.
Sleep is overrated, right?
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2 comments:
This has been a major concern for me, as well. I am still nursing my 15 month-old son, and while he does now sleep a good 6-hour stretch each night (usually from 9 p.m. until 3 or 4 a.m.) I still feel drained. I have considered weaning him so I have more energy for my work. But I want to wean for the right reasons - not so I can write more. So for now I do what I can, when I can, with what I have (didn't Roosevelt coin that phrase?).
This is one of those situations where the tensions between the demands of getting tenure and parenting are most evident. If I wanted to get more sleep, I could stop breastfeeding, let her "cry it out", and be more aggressive with sleep training. BUT, much like you Athena, I want to make parenting decisions for the right reasons -- right reasons do not include a need to work more as far as I am concerned.
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