4am, you are not my friend!

A slight change in scenery

I know I've said this on the blog before, but I really should be sleeping right now. Sleep when she sleeps, right? I got the message about our change in time zone; unfortunately I cannot say the same for Baby K. I'm not sure where she thinks she is, but it is definitely not in the same place I am.

For those of you who are wondering, yes, we're back in Texas for the holidays. We got back a week ago, having come in earlier than expected for the funeral of a family member. The week before, my sister and her husband came to visit us in Switzerland, so it's been a bit of a whirlwind. More on Cookie and Monkey's (Baby K's names for them) visit later.

Isn't it typical life with a toddler to think that you have things somewhat figured out, only for them to then prove that you absolutely do not?? This is Baby K and I right now. We've done the long-haul flight four times now, and also dealt with jet lag four times. I just thought I had a good handle on what would happen with jet lag this time around...cue Baby K laughing in my face.

I deal with middle-of-the-night wakings much better when I expect them to happen. With that said, I absolutely expected to not have a full night's sleep for the first four to five nights. In the past she has gotten up around 3am the first night, then 4am, then 5am, and so on until we get back to her getting up at her usual 7am. She would typically also go back to sleep after a little time quietly playing in our room. Not so much this time!

The first night she woke at 3am as expected, but then it took about two hours to get back to sleep. The next night it was 4am and I don't think she went back to sleep before getting up for the day. It has only gotten worse from there, including waking at 1am and not wanting to go back to sleep. She eventually does around 4am and will sleep until 5:30 or 6. Yikes...not good for anyone! Last night was probably the worst, mostly because she had the whole house up when she wouldn't stop crying around 3 this morning, still awake from her 1am wake up time. 

So what's the moral of the story? It's that I pretty much have no idea what's going on with jet lag or how to handle it. For the time being I've decided that Baby K is so overly tired that her little body won't get back on track, so I've tried to let her catch up on sleep and not try to adhere so much to her schedule. We'll see how it goes tonight. Hopefully she'll start to recover and begin to get on Texas time so we can start to get out and see people without feeling like we're unraveling all the time.

One thing is for sure: I have no doubt she will sleep through the night the night before BK arrives, as that's usually how it goes. Such is life. Think good thoughts for us.