It's Not the Olympics

Yesterday I read an blurb on People.com (Yes, I know. From time to time I like to catch up on celebrity gossip) about Olympic swimmer Amanda Beard. She has a 7 month old and is currently training for the 2012 Olympics, four or five hours every day. She said her son wakes up four to five times a night and she rarely naps. Reading that made me feel better about Sophia's sleeping "issues" and my own lack of sleep as a result.

I train for less than an hour each day and on a bad night Sophia wakes up once, and I'm training for a local half-marathon, not the Olympics. It is amazing though what lack of sleep can do to you. Sunday nights lack of sleep was mostly a result of the unusual heat and humidity.

Our bedroom is in the eves of the second floor, which means the only windows are two skylights and a tiny window at the end, not exactly ideal conditions for ventilation, especially considering the roof gets direct sun ALL DAY. As you can imagine by Sunday night our bedroom was an oven, in which hot, stagnant air had been baking for a god 12 hours.

We do have an air-conditioner that fits in the tiny window, we used it last year once or twice in August when we had a few hot nights, but that was it. We opted not to get it out Sunday--too much effort. It is after all, May in New Hampshire and it could very easily be 40 degrees and rainy next week, or for all of June for that matter (like it was last year).

We put Sophia to bed in just her diaper (so dang cute, by the way). She fell asleep quickly, her arms stretched above her head and her legs splayed out, trying to keep cool in any way she could. When we finally went to bed I couldn't fall asleep. And all my tossing and turning woke Sophia. She started rolling around in her crib. I could hear her. She'd roll over, get stuck on her belly and start calling out. So I went over and rolled her sweaty little body back to her starting spot. We did this about four times between midnight and 1am. Finally in my sleepless delirium it donned on me to roll up a blanket and wedge it by her back to keep her from rolling on her side (luckily she only rolls to the left). Once I did that she settled down and fell asleep, which was great for her, but it was still to hot and humid for me to get comfortable. I slept a few hour then woke again at 4:30am, fell back asleep and woke to Sophia's hungry rumblings at 6:15am.

So Monday, when I went for a run, I felt all of this sleeplessness. I was d-r-a-g-g-i-n-g, and it didn't help that I was pushing Sophia in the BOB either. I did a lot of walking and cut my run short.

My run today was better, we did hills and thanks to a good nights sleep I wasn't dragging. The rolled up blanket has been a help in keeping Sophia on her back, but we might not need it anymore. Yesterday she rolled from her belly to her back for the first time! It looks like I won't have to rescue her anymore now that she has figured it out. Hopefully my nights will be more restful, even if I'm not training for the Olympics, I'd still like a good nights sleep.