ROOKIE DAD LESSON LEARNED #101

posted by Romy (@daddontlie)

Keep your "I'm tired." comments to yourself

I've already learned about a hundred lessons in my eight months as a new dad. Now it's time to start actually logging them. Here's lesson learned #101. No matter how tired you are as a dad, don't let your wife know about it. As the husband...and the guy who doesn't provide the late night feedings...saying "I'm tired." in front of your wife, isn't suggested.

When the baby keeps you up at night because they're crying, you can mention that to your friends and co-workers but when around your sleep-deprived wife, keep it to yourself.

Or just expect the response "Oh, YOU'RE tired??"

As a new parent, it becomes quite apparent that sleep is like gold.

Gold is a precious metal. People covet it, it's universally exchanged, Olympic athletes compete for it every four years, rappers wear big gold chains as their status symbol...rapper Trinidad James has a whole music video called "All Gold Everything."

Sleep = Gold when you're a new parent. It becomes a hot commodity between parents, it's fought over and even exchanged "I'll clean the house if I can sleep in tomorrow morning."

Now, I've heard of babies that sleep through the night and nap for hours at a time during the day. Kyrie is NOT one of these babies. When you have a baby like Kyrie who frequently naps only in half hour intervals during the day and gets up in the middle of the night to show off his ability to stand up in the crib, a good night's sleep is hard to come by. My wife, Naomi, is on maternity leave and is up throughout the night for feedings or to soothe him when he starts crying. For a guy who likes his sleep, I don't envy those nighttime wakeups at all, I can barely function at those wee hours of the morning. I jet off to work at 7am everyday and fortunately for me, Naomi let's me get as much sleep I can get on a weeknight. I enjoy some dad-time with Kyrie in the morning while I get ready for work so Naomi can get some much needed snooze time.

My sleep habits before the baby were never good to start with. I would normally be up late watching a basketball game or working on the blog and get by with 5-6 hours on a work night. I would "catch up" on my sleep during the weekend. Well, that has changed a lot. As any parent knows, the weekend sleep-ins are pretty much a thing of the past. With a baby who's up throughout the night and up early in the morning for seven days a week, sometimes you feel like just getting away to a hotel for a night, just to get a good night's sleep!

The sleep deprivation was so bad that at one point the grandparents offered to come a couple of Saturday mornings to watch Kyrie for few hours while we "caught up" on sleep. And honestly, it was well worth it.

I guess, that as a parent, you just have to find your windows of opportunities and TAKE ADVANTAGE. Sleep during his nap times, go to bed earlier, postpone any tasks that don't need to be done right away, and...

Get. That. Sleep.

But keep this in mind.

Babies grow up fast. So the sleep deprivation is worth it because you definitely don't want to miss anything.

Romy is a dad, husband and blogger based out of Halifax. He also writes about hoops too at HipHoopJunkies.com, follow him on Twitter @DadDontLie.