18 months

Joel: 18 months

Micah: 18 months

  18 months. We have finally reached the age in which Joel was when Micah was born (give or take a few days). It shocks me that Micah is the same age that Joel was when we had baby Micah. Micah seems so much younger than Joel was at this age. But that probably has something to do with forgetting what life was like for those months preceding Micah's birth.  I can't believe that we planned on having a baby so soon after Joel. But now I can understand why people have babies close together. Since Micah (mostly) sleeps through the night, I think it would be easier to have a little newborn baby now. I think that because Joel was (and still is) such a difficult sleeper, we had a harder time trying to balance the needs of a toddler and infant.

If Micah was born first, we wouldn't have struggled so much in those early days, when we were trying so hard to get two children to sleep. Micah would have slept through the night and we would only have to contend with a newborn baby.

But such is life. We were blessed with a difficult sleeper first. Followed by a really good sleeper (as long as he's not teething or in pain). We are extremely blessed that Micah (mostly) sleeps through the night. He goes down super easy and is fairly easy to calm if he does wake up.

Joel was the exact opposite at this age. He was up at least 3 times a night and was difficult to put to bed. It would often take an hour or more to calm him enough to get him to lie down and another half an hour of  'putting him back to bed' before he finally passed out. Then he would wake up, sometimes screaming, and we would spend hours putting him back to bed. Then we would be so awake from the adrenalin of Joel's screams that we would struggle to fall asleep. Sadly, quite often we would just fall asleep, only to have Micah wake up for his next feeding.

I think I could write a book about our kids sleep habits (or lack thereof). Let me tell you, a GOOD sleeper, one that sleeps through the night fairly early on and keeps doing that, would be a monstrous blessing to our family. Both kids slept okay until six months old. Then all hell would break loose and we would spend the next year or more instilling good sleep habits (hahaha...more like surviving massive sleep deprivation)  until finally they would 'suddenly' sleep better. 

Okay, Joel didn't sleep well until he turned 2. Micah was born when Joel was 18 months old. So, there was six month of overlapping bad sleeping. But Micah wasn't too bad, just newborn like, those first six months. He didn't sleep well until about a month ago. So, all in all, we have endured 3 years of sleep deprivation. That is a long time folks. That's waking up 2-3 times a night, minimum. For THREE YEARS! We are finally (sorta) sleeping better. Waking up only once a night feels like a dream. I can't imagine what sleeping through every night for a week would feel like. Perhaps, soon, I will know. Now, if only we could get Joel to stop waking up in the middle of the night because his blanket came off, or his boat is facing the wrong way, or whatever that nights excuse is.

Now that we mostly sleep through the night, and are not-so sleep deprived, we have developed a new problem.  When the boys just so happen to wake up in the middle of the night, and we quickly put them back to bed, we find ourselves struggling to fall back asleep. When we weren't sleeping, we were so tired that we would lie back down and immediately be asleep. But now, we are semi well-rested and once we are woken up, we are finding it harder and harder to fall asleep. Thus, making us more and more tired. Oh the life of a parent!