Sleep deprived

I am exhausted.  Very exhausted.  Before I had kids, I used to think the reasons parents were so tired was because of their newborn or infant waking them up at night needing to be fed.  I never anticipated that a toddler would be the reason they were so tired.  When my daughter was born, I prepared myself for sleepless nights.  But the first two weeks was tough for us.  We had to wake up every two hours to feed her.  But we took turns.  I fed her and put her to sleep, two hours later my husband would wake up to feed her and put her to sleep, then two hours later I would wake up and so forth.  But after that she slept through the night and didn't wake up in the middle of the night.  I remember thinking if  this is what parenting is all about, I want at least four more kids.  I was silly to think such a thing.

Now my daughter is almost three.  It takes us forever to get her to fall asleep.  One of us is always in the room with her, otherwise she will cry and end up waking up her brother.  She also wakes up in the middle of the night.  The other night I finally fell asleep a little after 9pm.  She woke up at 11:45pm the first time and I finally got her to fall asleep and made it back to my room at 12:15am.  Then she woke up again at 2:30am and I got her asleep at 2:45am.  And then she woke up at 4:05am and my husband just told me to bring her in our room.  Then at 5am my husband's alarm woke me up.  Then last night she woke up at 1:30am and wouldn't let me leave her room.  At one point I just told her I had to go to the bathroom and I left and she was quiet.  So I went back to my room and laid down and waited for her to fall asleep so I could go to sleep.  Then she woke up again at 3am and it was not easy getting her to calm down to go back to bed.  Every time I tried talking to her she would scream no and run away from me.  And if I stood in her room she'd be calm somewhat.  But because my body is so tired I wanted her to come with me so she can sleep in our bed.  So I left when she wasn't listening to me and when I left, she would cry hysterically.  She ended up waking up my son because she was so loud.  At the end I just ended up picking her up, and hurting my back at that, and putting her in the pack and play that's in our room while our son was sleeping in our room.

Coffee and I have become best friends again.  I missed it so much.