Dad Time 5 – Sleep Time
Oof, trying to get some sleep when you live with a new-born should qualify as some sort of extreme sport.
As I wrote a long time ago, I’ve always been the kind of person who loves working in the middle of the night, when everything is quiet and you can focus on your projects. So you’d think that 15+ years of staying up until 4-5am would finally come in handy, right? Eh…
I have pulled many all-nighters before, working without stopping for countless hours, but nothing, and I mean nothing, could have prepared me for the fatigue that would come.
It’s one thing to write reports, or assignments throughout the night, and it’s another to try to entertain a grumpy baby who barely even acknowledges your attempts.
Of course, I wanted to give Kokoro a few hours of rest, so I would take care of Yoshifusa in the middle of the night, since I was the one who was used to being up so late.
So every evening around 12am became our little journey from: walking in circles around the room, telling Yoshifusa stories, singing him a song or two, playing some background soothing music, and much, much more, until he would settle into his hour-long nap.
The job wasn’t done yet though! Since there were days where he would wake up instantly once he was on the cot, I would hold him for an hour or two in my arms just to make sure that Kokoro can at least rest a bit.
And even though the nights were long, I loved and cherished every minute of it. I remember I felt so proud and happy when I’d wake Kokoro up after she had slept for 2-3 hours – “Look mom, we were good, and you were able to rest well!”
What? Yes, sleeping for 2-3 hours qualifies as resting well!