Sleep and Weekly Goals

Last week was not my favorite. The transition back to work has been rough. It was 100 times easier last time (in April) for two reasons: Max actually slept at night (#1 reason) and I already knew my students and was coming back to them so I wasn't teaching all the routines and procedures of the beginning of the year, and trying to get to know my students and their parents. It actually makes me sad that this class doesn't know Max at all… I almost miss how much students would interrupt my lesson to say, "so, how's Max doing?" But really, the time, energy and mental effort involved in the beginning of kindergarten is not for the sleep deprived person. 

Max has decided he no longer sleeps through the night. At first, he just woke up, had a quick snack and was back to sleep. I didn't love it, but I figured he must be hungry and at least it was a quick wake up (though it always takes me awhile to get back to sleep). The past two weeks though, it's more like wake up, take a sip of milk, decide he's not hungry, try to play, test out new crawling skills, maybe pull up on the side of crib, cry for mom, try to play, cry for mom again, etc. Blah, I know I have to sleep train but my one attempt went horrible and no amount of ignoring crying in kindergarten can prepare you for listening to your baby scream in the next room. 

Good thing he is cute. 

Last week's goals were to walk or swim every night and to control my media use by avoiding the computer after Max was asleep and deleting the Facebook app on my phone. I did great with goal #1, I walked every single night even the nights that I swam. This won't be one of my goals this week but I'm sure I will do it again as it's really just the best thing for our whole family. My media use was okay- I did go on the computer a couple of times after Max was asleep, simply because I had to do something for work or pay a bill etc. I forgot that some days that is really my only opportunity to get on the computer between work and taking care of Max. Even still, I had no problem shutting it off to go to bed early, so that's good. I kept the Facebook app off my phone all week, but I did have a few instances where I went to the website… still that had to be more intentional than just clicking on the app so, I think I'll probably keep the app off my phone for now and see if I can kind of slowly make myself less dependent. 

Goals for Week of 9/14

1. Read more. It's so hard to fit in, but I'm always happier when I do. Try to get 50% of the way through my new book: The Last Letter from Your Lover by Jojo Meyes

2. Train Max to go to bed without falling asleep nursing. It's going to stink but that's the first step in training this baby not to wake up to play in the middle of the night. I'm going to start on Thursday so I only have 1 more day to get through of work, and hopefully by the next Monday things won't be super terrible. Then in a few weeks I'll tackle the middle of the night wake ups (unless they stop, which would be even better). 

And here is your unsolicited advice from me this week. #1- don't have kids, #2- don't teach kindergarten and #3- if you don't listen to me about 1 or 2, please at least don't do both. Thank me later :)