Last Week of Work!

Dressing Up; If only it were warm enough!

The countdown begins! As I write these words, I have only two days of work left until my maternity leave officially begins. Last time around, I worked right up until I was full term (37 weeks gestation). This time around, I am stopping a week earlier. Although I had made myself available until 37 weeks, I was only scheduled until 36 weeks and a few days. And I couldn't be happier. Not that I don't enjoy my work. I am simply finding that I am a lot more tired this time around. And I have no doubt that it has everything to do with Baby # 1. There is a reason why we (lovingly) call her Brat.

From early morning until she finally goes to sleep in the evening she has an endless stream of energy. On the rare occasion that we stay in all day, she runs around the kitchen, into the dining room, past the the island stools, into the main hallway, and then loops around again. Over and over again, begging us to chase her. As though she knows that she needs to expend energy. For about a week now, we have actually stopped forcing her to nap during the day. Firstly, it was a chore just to convince her to sleep. It would take so long to convince her to nap, that often she would only fall asleep around 15h. After a two hour nap, she would then be recharged, and refuse to go to bed until around 22h. We had considered waking her up from her nap after only an hour, but on the few occasions where her naps were curtailed, she was in a very cranky mood the rest of the day. So we thought, why not cut out her nap altogether, and see what happens. We certainly didn't prevent her from napping. We followed the usual pre-nap routine, but if we were unable to convince her to nap by 15h, we decided to let her stay up. She now goes to sleep between 20h and 20:30h, and we finally get a few hours to ourselves in the evening. She is rarely cranky in the evening, and she seems to sleep a little better at night, waking up anytime between 7h and 8:30h.

The side effect of cutting out her naps, however, is that I too no longer have the luxury of napping during the day. And as my third trimester progresses, I feel more and more tired. During my first pregnancy, I had the advantage of resting when I pleased. And I can only imagine that things will only get harder once Baby # 2 comes along. Baby # 2 will no doubt keep me up during the night, and Baby # 1 will prevent me from napping during the day!