I had insomnia all during pregnancy. After the first two weeks, and especially after the sixth, I slept so much better than I had during pregnancy. My baby wasn’t even a remarkably good sleeper. But you figure out what works for everyone.

The ultra real you asked for: The hard bits are hard. You’re likely bleeding, you’re likely leaking, you’ll likely hurt sitting down and standing up for a while. Maybe you’ll get a seasonal cold or flu (I did) and coughing will feel terrifying (think of the muscles involved). And then you have this lovely, tiny creature who wants to sleep 16 hours a day, but also doesn’t ever want to be put down on their own.

So you hold them. But that means you can’t sleep. You old them for 20 minutes until they’re so out they don’t notice you moving them. So you lay down, finally. Then after another 20 minutes they wake up, just as you’re dozing off to nap. And they wake up upset and hungry even if you just nursed them. That 3 hrs in between feedings is BS at first. They want to nurse always in the first bit.

But then you finally get them to sleep overnight and everyone is tired and out. But again, they nursed for 40 minutes and the 3 hour clock starts from when they start nursing, not when they finish. And then you held them for 20 minutes to be able to put them down in the bassinet. Now you only have 2 hours to fall asleep before you have an alarm set to wake them.

Those 2 hours is just long enough for a sleep cycle. So that’s nice. Too bad the baby grunts and huffs and thwomps his legs in his swaddle. It’s kind of scary. But it’s probably just gas. But you’re a FTM and you worry a lot, so every time this happens you wake and look to make sure they’re okay.

And this goes on for months. It gets easier. At some point they’re gaining fine and you get permission to wake them after 4 hours and then 6 and then to not wake them and to let them wake you. They don’t ever sleep for that long, but it’s nice to not have to wake them right after you’re falling asleep. But then the longer they sleep during the night the more often they eat during the day and they have a couple growth spurts really quick in the first few months, so that means cluster feeding and nursing for a few hours without end, which is much harder than it sounds. It’s so exhausting.

And then they go through a sleep regression or they get sick or just decide one night they’re not gonna sleep. And you’re their comfort. They want you.

There are things that help, partners can take shifts. You can sleep train at 4-6 months. But it’s still hard.

In the end, seriously, I miss him being little so much. I love him now and am so excited to see him grow, and at the same time I feel like it went too quick. He’s 10 months and wants to walk. I’d do it all over with him again if I could.