Hi everyone. I know I’m super irregular with posting these blogs but mommy duties and writing have been taking up most of my time. I’ve finished my last interracial romance for a while and am currently working on my horror short story, which I might finish this week. Anyway, I wanted to talk about my new normal.
I’d first like to start off by saying I starting writing this blog as I was crying myself to sleep at around 3am a couple weeks ago. I was feeling overwhelmed, and lonely. Plus, my baby hasn’t been sleeping through the night and my husband now works ten hour days. He’s gone before me and our daughter get up for the day and gets home later in the evening, when her day is almost done.
Let me back up a bit, see my husband and I are one of those couples who can be around each other constantly and never feel the need to seek out alone time. Back before the pandemic when we were both working we would go to bed at the same time, he’d take me to work, we would talk on the phone during my breaks, he would pick me up from work and we would spend the rest of our evenings doing whatever before going to bed together.
Then the pandemic hit.
I was laid off first. Three days later we found out that we were expecting our first child. A couple days after that, he was also laid off. That led us to spending the better part of a year(also my entire pregnancy) together. And that became our new normal. We got used to late nights, even later mornings, and just doing whatever we wanted to do.
Then our daughter came and I was never more grateful to have my love than during that time. It was definitely a learning experience being new parents in the midst of a global pandemic. 0/10 definitely wouldn’t recommend it. Becoming parents is already a huge change for anyone. So, to be doing so with everything else so unstable has led to some trying times, i.e., me crying myself to sleep.
Anyway, just recently my husband started this new job that runs from 7am-4 or 5pm with about a 30-45 minute commute. That is a huge chunk of our day that we are apart. Not only that but we went from splitting our parenting duties in half to me taking care of our daughter by myself for over 10 hours a day sometimes.
(BIG SHOUT OUT TO SINGLE PARENTS AND WORKING PARENTS. I AM IN AWE. I HAVE NO CLUE HOW YOU DO IT!)
Though I’m sure it’s much easier when your child sleeps through the night. Which our darling daughter stopped doing right around 7 and a half months, (about a week into this new job for my husband), right around the time she took her first steps.
Our baby is very advanced for her age. Holding up her head at 2 weeks. Rolling onto her back from her stomach at like 2 months. Attempting to crawl at around 3. Rolling from her back to her stomach at about 4 months. Standing on her own at 6 months. And now walking without holding onto anything at 8 months. The problem with her being so advanced is that I’m having to try to keep up with this tiny human who has no self-awareness of the danger this big world poses. Plus, she never sits still! Like ever. She’s been a busy body since her first ultrasound at 10 weeks.
It wouldn’t be so bad if she slept through the night, but she doesn’t. Even now almost 3 weeks later she still wakes up every 2-3 hours through out the night and cries(screams) at the top of her lungs. For those of you who are going to say, oh so its just like back when she was a newborn. NO!! It wasn’t this bad back then. So now I get no sleep because I’m listening for the movements that I’ve come to recognize as the sign she’s about to wake up. And when I do have her settled, my husband’s snoring has been terrible because he’s exhausted most of the time.
So, I’m stressed, sleep deprived, overwhelmed, and just kinda need a break.
There have been so many changes in my life in this very short amount of time that I’ve having a hard time adjusting and crying myself to sleep was the only way I could deal with it at that moment. Of course, I’ve talked to my husband about how I’m feeling but there’s really nothing he can do about it. I can’t ask him to not work. He’s the only one bring in money right now while I look for a job where I can work from home. I’ve been getting a little more sleep, having the baby sleep in her bassinet in the living room but that’s far from a permanent solution.
All in all, the parts of me that make me happiest have been suffering. My writing, reading books, sleeping… All of that has taken a back seat in the last few weeks and I’m just struggling to get back to normal…
Any suggestions?
Nel Blake 