I said to my husband yesterday as he was dropping me off on campus, I don't feel like there is enough time in the day. We were sitting in traffic, baby screaming in the backseat, both of us sleep deprived and he looked at me and said "I don't know if I want anymore kids." He later admitted he didn't mean it, but sometimes all the stress of being a parent to a newborn makes him think he wouldn't want to do it again. I know how he feels. You know when you have a baby that things are going to be rough, but I think both of us underestimated how truly difficult it would be.
Sleep deprivation obviously happens to both of you whether you are breastfeeding or not. My husband tends to be a light sleeper and one of those people, once woken up cannot go back to sleep. So even though I get up at night with our daughter, sometimes it wakes him up to, then he'll be off the entire day from waking up at 4 am and not going back to sleep. The sleep deprivation effects my stress level more than anything. When I'm rested I can handle "Mimi the Miserable" but when I'm not, I break down in tears sometimes at the stress of it all. I think the second most frustrating thing after chronic loss of sleep is the fact that there is no longer enough time for all other things in life. You slowly watch your house and your job fall to pieces, trying to catch up on the weekends from a week that went by so fast you couldn't even get laundry done.
Having my daughter has taught me to be more patient and lower my expectations. That was actually one piece of advice someone gave us "Lower your expectations." Accept that things won't always get done, life won't always be perfect, and overall you'll be a lot happier. I think this is somewhat true. I just take each day, one at a time, I do the best I can to be a good parent, wife, student, and friend. Some days I can do a lot, the house is clean, my daughter isn't covered in puke, there's food on the table and I manage to get some work done. Other days we're in our pj's till 2pm and I've had cereal for breakfast and lunch and dinner is looking like takeout.
When I kiss my daughters fat little cheeks and hear her coo, and I watch my husband talk to her and give her kisses it makes all the crap, all the stress, hell and all the money worth it!
I put up a photo of Mimi laying in the bathroom before her bath. She seems really happy to stare at the shower curtain and kick her legs. This last about 5 or 10 minutes. The other photo is her in her Halloween onesie that probably won't fit by Halloween!
