sleep, where art thou?

I uploaded Zoey's birth story. Up there on the tab bar.

 I can not believe it's already been a year. Crazy! It was so neat to write it and feel like it had just happened, only not really. So thankful for time passing since being pregnant and giving birth. It's such a whirlwind and kind of stressful for me.

Zoey is taking an unusual morning nap (perhaps because she was up at 6am?) and Jack is content and nearby. I normally love the upcoming spring (and still do) but the early sunrise kind of kicks our behinds. Arizona doesn't have daylight savings so there is no turning the clock back that hour and kiddos wake up with the sun. Even with blackout shades, for real.



Zoey is such an interesting sleeper and so, so opposite of her brother. Jack loves his sleep, still takes a near 3 hour nap every day. I have to wake him up almost every day. He is like his daddy. Even at Zoey's age he still needed those naps and didn't really love life without them.

Zoey can easily function on an hour and a half nap. She might not be the happiest camper the last hour of it or so, but she is ready for the day after she wakes up.



This can be so tricky and seriously exhausting.

I would hope that after only an hour and a half nap she would fall into a deep needed sleep at night and there would be no more worries. However, it's as if she gets her last burst of energy anywhere between midnight and 3am. She's been like this since about 6 months old and I can not for the life of me figure out why. I give her two naps, I nurse her back to sleep if she wakes up early, I've put her to bed later, I've let her sit in her crib and talk/cry for an HOUR and she's still just a bubble of energy and just can't seem to fall asleep. Of course I have given her tylenol thinking she might be in pain, but that didn't work so well either. So weird. I trust that shortly after she is weaned she might find the love and blessing of a full night's rest. The last few nights have been good. She's gotten up to nurse, but fell right back asleep (thank you Lord!) but this morning she was up at 6 and yesterday it was 6:30. Which I'm okay with really. I'm an early bird and that typically means she'll be ready for a morning nap around 9. It's just the middle of the night-life that is killin' me. I mean, she is just too cute when she is awake so it's hard to be frustrated and she's not crying (besides outbursts every 15 minutes or so. Kind of hard to sleep through that in the other room ;) so it can't be that annoying.

She's pretty much talking to herself. I have moments of laughter in the middle of the night thinking of her being a 2 year old and waking her brother up so they could play at 3am. Knowing Jack he would hardly open his eyes and just mutter "go back to sleep" and she probably would. I know she'll get there, but I just had to document this so if another lil kiddo is like this I can reflect and feel comforted (? Kind of?) I've googled it (of course) and it is very common and most mom's don't know what to do. We aren't into crying it out (although I have definitely tried it with her) but she just has to no tears. She is simply ready to party. Can't say I blame her.