One thing about having kids is that you can never take off the parenting hat no matter how tired you are. When my son was born about a week ago, I slept 1.5 hours while we were at the hospital at night trying to pace around the labor and delivery floor to make progress on the dilation. I remember being sent home from the hospital because my wife did not make enough progress (even after walking around for 3.5 hours!) and to labor at home.

When I arrived home, luckily my wife got to rest after an injection to help her sleep while she was having contractions. I had to give our dog a quick walk around the block while being exhausted and to try and get a bit of rest before my other two kids woke up in about an hour to get ready to go to daycare. Of course they woke up early and did not let me rest, so my day started with 1.5 hours of sleep (all of it accrued before going to the hospital). After dropping them off at daycare, I was at least able to sleep for a few extra hours before the home stretch when my newborn popped out in the late night. Juggling things while being tired is something that every parent has to experience and is honestly one of the tougher things to overcome if you still want to be patient with your kids (I know sometimes I am not!).

One of the changes I recently tried to make is to track my sleep to see metrics for how things were going. Seeing my “time in bed” and my “time asleep” helped quantify (and summarize) how each night went I can even drill deeper and see my REM Sleep, Core Sleep, and Deep Sleep compared to my Awake periods. I have been doing it the last several weeks before my son was born and it helps be stay on top of my sleep while trying to correct any bad habits out, such as being on my phone too long in bed. Gamifying sleep and seeing metrics behind it helps me make sure I am maximizing my rest so I can show up for them family in the right ways. It is something I definitely recommend tracking and seeing if it leads to a positive change in the sleep routine. After we got back from the hospital, I have been getting 7+ hours of sleep every night (thanks to my wife who is with the newborn at night!) and have fought off the nasty cold/fever I had. Finally feeling more like myself after being sleep deprived.

I did make the mistake of telling my wife that I was tired yesterday after the kids woke me up during the night. It was met with a very passionate monologue about how lucky I am to be sleeping so well at night. Note taken - do not mention you are tired to a parent taking care of the newborn all night. Ever.

I am still with the baby during the day (also, literally right now) and feeling grateful to be able to write about my thoughts on parenting in “relative” peace.