When someone finds out you have a kid under 1 year old the first thing they generally ask is “are you getting any sleep?”. My answer is usually a little qualified and sometimes a little sarcastic. With that having been said it’s not always as cut and dry as my short little answer makes it sound. The reality behind my answer has changed with the 2nd kid. Not really because we worry about 2 kids sleeping, although I try really hard not to take that for granted. What it changes is how much additional support I need to provide in the time when the kids aren’t sleeping due to the fact that Katie isn’t getting as much sleep as she should.
When people ask me that wonderful question I usually respond with something like “well, I’m getting plenty of sleep…” . Katie is pretty staunch on the breastfeeding, we put very little effort into bottles, and Katie is an extremely light sleeper when it comes to anything child related. Now I could get up and change a diaper or something but in most cases Katie’s going to be awake anyhow, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense for both of us to be tired during the day. It’s probably also worth noting that in most cases you’d need to drive a dump truck into our bedroom to wake me up.
In theory this seems like I’m getting off scot-free and in a lot of ways I am. This was especially true with one kid. She would nap a couple times a day allowing Katie some good down time to recharge, get things done at her pace. The second one changed this dynamic drastically and it’s taken a while for me to learn this and how to deal with it. I’m still not great at it but I’m learning how much I need to be around on the weekends when I’m not working to make sure Katie has that time. This really makes riding more than an hour or so during the day on the weekends a challenge.
Weekends are usually times when friends are riding together or time for long rides. I’ve actually taken the opposite approach lately. I’m up earlier on the weekends than I am during the week so that I can get a 2 hour ride in before the kids get up at 7:30 am. I am a morning person but this is still tough. A morning person yes, but I really enjoy relaxing mornings with coffee. I’m getting used to it though, it can be tough in the cold winter mornings but most of the time it’s just getting out the door that’s the hard part. There is a ton of information on the internet about different tricks/hacks to make this easier. Every few months I’ll read another, like this blog, just to kind of give me a new idea. The biggest thing for me though is just to have things ready the night before so I don’t have much to do in the morning. I can honestly say that once I’m outside pedaling I’ve never once said “this sucks I should go home”.
This approach still doesn’t really account for longer rides though. My most recent approach has been to work most of my longer rides into the weekdays. The company I work for has a great flextime policy and I still get up really early during the week. So whether its starting a ride at 5 am during the week and being home by 9am to get to work. Or wrapping up my work at 1 and getting home by 5 I can work those kinds of rides in every couple of weeks without disturbing the peace at work or at home. I want to qualify that statement, I take a lot of steps to make sure I’ve put in some extra effort at work to make the time away as seamless as possible. Having this kind of autonomy at a workplace is something that shouldn’t be taken for granted and has taken a long time to achieve.
For the past few months I’ve really tried hard to keep my weekend rides out of any time when the kids are awake or may be awake. I’m not going to say I’ve been perfect, and I’m not trying to suggest that anything I’m doing isn’t something that other folks don’t just naturally do. I know that by nature a lot of people who are passionate about something that is kind of a solo event or something that the whole family isn’t involved in can get a little selfish with our time. By making a real effort to try and be a little less selfish with that time everyone in the house is a happier and I’m actually riding a little bit more than I had been before, go figure.
