Daddy Radar

I don't know about you, but I found that when I had children I didn't sleep as soundly at night. I was either listening for the monitor or I would jump at the slightest sound ready to spring into action as need be.  I still slept, and I still got my requisite 8 (okay, maybe 5 or 6) hours of sleep. But I did sleep.  I developed mommy radar. I think most parents do develop a radar system. You want to be sure that you hear your kids and that everything is okay.

My husband had radar, too, in the beginning. He would help when our oldest was an infant. He would get up with me and help me with diaper changes or getting us settled for nursing. In the first few days of our son's arrival my husband would actually get up and get our son from his crib and bring him to me in bed and I would nurse him. When I finished, he would bring our son back to his crib.

But I noticed that as time as wore on, and as I stayed home full-time with the kids my husband's "daddy radar"wasn't as in tune as it used to be.  Between the hours of midnight and 5:30am, my husband sleeps soundly. Very soundly.  If the kids got up at all for any reason he never notices.  He'll say something like, "Wow, the kids slept really well last night. They never got up once." But of course I was like a jack-in-the-box, changing a wet diaper, wet sheets, changing pull-ups, or helping someone go to the potty. He was always shocked when he heard of this.

However, with the doctor's orders to stay put and to stay off my feet more and more, I noticed that Hubby's radar is kicking back into action. Just the other night our daughter called for me. I started to get up and he put a hand on my arm and said, "I'll get her."  Whoa! What just happened? Did he actually hear her? Yes.

We had our friends' one year old daughter staying with us on Saturday night.  She woke up and he heard her and got up to attend to her.  He did stop when she stopped crying, went to the bathroom, came back to our room and asked, "What was I doing?" Since she had stopped crying I told him to come back to bed. He made a valiant effort and his radar still needs some work, but it's coming back!

I'm really grateful for his help. I know that this hasn't been easy for him to start taking over some of the things that I usually do around the house. But he's been doing everything without complaint. I have been sleeping a little better now that his radar is kicking in. He feels better that I'm not jumping out of bed and everything is getting better. By the way, I'm 22 weeks along and on the downhill run....whew!