Noisy Nights

When we initially decided to let the boys sleep in our room for the first few months of their lives, it never occurred to me that this meant I would be sharing my sleeping quarters with three boys. And I certainly never thought about how noisy boys are, even when they are sound asleep. At times it seems like there is always someone burping, farting, or snoring. That's just the way it is.

But since the boys have been born, there have been a lot of other noises too. As sleeping newborns, M sounded like a contented little lamb, and L sounded an awful lot like a donkey. My husband used to joke that as they hauled me away to the nuthouse, I would still be going, "Baa, baa, baa. Hee-haw, hee-haw, hee-haw," since that is all I heard all night. (And after enough time spent listening to that, I was pretty much a confirmed nut.)

As the boys got a little older, these noises stopped, but there were other noises. M went through a grunting phase. A very loud grunting phase, and for some reason, his grunts increased in volume throughout the night to the point that I spent two weeks sleeping on the couch in the living room starting around 4 a.m. each morning. The deep sleep that went with the grunting also correlated with a corresponding drop in M's heart rate. A low resting heart rate would be a good thing in anyone else, but the poor little guy was on his apnea monitor, so just as he started sleeping well, his hideously piercing monitor would go off, startling the whole house awake. We were not sad to see the monitor go.

The last couple of weeks, things have actually been quiet. The boys are sleeping much longer stretches, and M has even slept all the way through the night twice. (He went 11 hours without eating! We never thought that would happen with Chunky Monkey!) I had gotten so used to the noise, that there have been a couple of times where I woke up in a mild panic and went to check on the boys just to make sure they were still breathing.

Last night we got a whole new set of noises. At 4:00 a.m., L decided to chatter. This was no quiet cooing or happy playing. The kid went on and on. Apparently he had a lot to say! As cute as it was, after about 20 minutes, I decided it was time for him to eat since he had awoken both parents and dogs, and M was starting to stir. Thankfully, he wanted to nurse back to sleep. Hurray for breastfeeding!