Pretty much ever since having Lila, my sleep has been bonkers. Not in the way you would expect. I’m actually getting a lot of uninterrupted sleep thanks to my baby who has slept 10 hours or more since 6 weeks. It’s more my new foray into sleep-walking.

Let me backtrack a little. When you get pregnant, you start hearing about all these things you shouldn’t do anymore. No eating sushi, having a glass of wine, skiing etc etc etc. The list doesn’t stop after the baby is here either. One of the biggest parenting no, no’s you hear about with an infant is unsafe sleeping habits … namely sleeping with your baby in your bed.

Now, we moved Lila out of our room to her crib at a month because none of us were sleeping well together. She’s a loud baby. So she hasn’t even been near our bed for four months. Yet this is how pretty much every night goes for me…

2:00 am :

(I sit up in bed half asleep in a panic)

Liz – BABE! The baby is suffocating!!

Luke – (groggy) What? You’re sleeping.

Liz – No I’m not! Get the baby out from the sheets!! (frantically pulling the sheets off the bed)

Luke – (shakes me) Wake up psycho!

Liz – (turns on a light. Looks around confused. Goes back to bed.)

Seriously, I have woken up in a panic that I am suffocating my baby in my bed about four nights a week for months now. It’s always some variation of the same dream … Lila is in bed, I’m hugging her and without realizing it I roll onto her and smother her.

Sometimes I even start to act out the dream in my sleep. Last night for example I woke myself up at 3 am and I was on my knees at the end of the bed frantically trying to get the “baby” (Luke’s foot) out from under the covers. Poor Luke was woken up to his foot getting mauled by his crazy wife in the middle of the night!!

I know SIDS is nothing to joke about, but I can’t stop laughing at what a lunatic I have become with my sleep. Especially since she’s not even in our room! I’m not sure what the deal is, but maybe it’s my brain’s way of releasing the pressure I feel as a new mom?

Either way, I really hope my dreams shift away from me killing my child to something a little more pleasant. And I’m sure Luke would appreciate an end to the middle of the night freakout sessions. I’m just going to chalk this one up to “mommy brain.”