I need my sleep!

I think it is not a coincidence that humankind in general loves its sleep.  While animals immediately get on their feet after being born, human beings lie on their backs...for months!  The thing we do the most after being born is to sleep.  The thing we need the most once we start working is sleep.  The thing we like doing the most on holidays is sleep.  The absence of sleep makes us irritable; it makes us sick.  We may not be able to do without it, but we gladly indulge and sleep longer than actually necessary.  And finally, when our life on earth is about to get over, we end up on bed (deathbed) again.  It somehow seems pre-destined that sleep is not something that we can do without.

Jennifer has her own sleep schedule.  She would keep awake for about two hours at a stretch and would then require about half hour of 'power nap'.  This schedule can keep her going quite actively throughout the day.  During siesta time, she might even sleep for almost 60-90 minutes, on a good day!  Even her night time sleep is quite regular; she sleeps from 9 to 6 with only one or two feeding breaks in between.  My point is that she is quite set in her pattern.

And she loves the bed!  Even when she awakes, she likes to remain lying...she would rub her cheeks against the pillow....she would coo-coo....and just absorb the warmth of the blanket.  

However, when I came home after work yesterday, baby was cranky!  Due to some mysterious reason, she did not take her siesta.  So, obviously energy reserves were running low.  And what do people do when they feel weak but do not want to appear so?  They over-compensate.  In this case, she would cry, throw tantrums, kick her feet, wave her hands and thereby exhaust herself even more.  I was impressed that she could keep this up till 8 in the evening.  This must have been one of the longest stretches that she remained awake.

It made me think.  She is almost 8 months old....and I can already envision how we parents might have to struggle to get her out of bed in order to go to school on time; how we will have to listen to excuses that the alarm didn't ring; how someone has to stay up in the night to ensure she won't fall asleep while preparing for exams, etc.  Suddenly, it seems so long ago that we ourselves were victims of sleep and had to be supervised by our parents...how time flies.... :)