You may have read my Tweet today about being so tired that I started mumbling threats to the coffee maker, when really, the reason it wasn’t brewing my daily pot of Black Liquid Hope* was because—oh. I forgot to add water.

I’m exhausted. All the time. And as much as I love my Roo, I’d really love to start seeing less of him between 8pm and 6am. Less meaning NOT AT ALL.

“I thought he’d be sleeping through the night by now,” George sighed last Sunday. “When did Oliver start?”

“Oliver was 8 weeks old,” I reminded him. Seeing him mentally calculate the time difference for Andrew, I just laughed. “Yeah. That would have been SIX WEEKS AGO.”

I was Sleep Spoiled—Sleep Spoiled ROTTEN—with my first baby, but I didn’t truly appreciate it until now. Oliver started consistently sleeping through the night at only 8 weeks old. I’m not talking 4-, 5-, or 6- hour stretches—I’m talking a solid TWELVE HOURS of uninterrupted sleep. Every. Single. Night. But I only bragged about it a little, because I knew I was probably in for payback with a second child someday.

And… yeah.

Andrew is 15 weeks old now and is still waking up a couple times per night, usually once or twice when he needs soothing and again between 4-5am for a feeding. He’s had a couple recent stretches to 6am, but not without waking up and crying (i.e. dragging me out of bed) at least once.

George says this is a trade-off and Andrew will be an easy 3-year old. HA!

I say (because I’m the one getting up in the night), it’s a good thing this kid is so cute.

Losing sleep is MUCH tougher the second time around because 1) (and this is the obvious one) caring for two kids is more physically and emotionally demanding than caring for just one; 2) Oliver alone wears me out simply because he is in the Terrible Threes with no sign of losing the attitude any time soon; 3) it’s hard to let Andrew cry for more than 2 seconds in an effort to let him learn to soothe himself when I don’t want him to wake up Oliver during his nap or in the middle of the night; and 4) I’m four years older now and my body doesn’t handle sleep deprivation as well (seriously, there is a big difference between 27 and 31 in that way, at least for me). I also started back to work two days a week already, whereas I didn’t work for a year while Oliver was a baby.

What’s worse is that lately I’m in a horrible adrenaline-fueled survival mode, drinking coffee to keep me awake in the morning, but having difficulty getting my brain and my body to wind down at night. I’ve been staying awake past midnight, 1am, 2am. It’s hard to go to sleep at night and then it’s even harder to get up in the morning. I never feel rested, and it’s taking a toll on everything, from how my body constantly aches to how I don’t feel like laughing as much with my kids. The solution is simple: I need more sleep.

It just so happens that Lent begins today, and since I’m already on a diet, my challenge this year is going to be an earlier bedtime. And this truly IS a challenge for me because despite being perpetually exhausted, I’m still a night owl by nature, so forcing myself to cut my night activities short (catching up on cleaning or laundry, reading books or blogs, playing with pictures, etc) goes against my body clock. I think a 10:30 bedtime is realistic though, and that would buy me at least an extra 1-2 hours more sleep than I’m getting now.

Here’s hoping tonight begins 40 nights of more sleep, followed by 40 days of more smiles and more sanity… and maybe even less coffee.

*And if you know which show that quote is from, I love you almost as much as I love sleep.