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I did my residency in internal medicine back in the day before there were work-hour restrictions for residents. Actually, the year I finished, they were just instituting these more humane hours for training physicians to take full effect RIGHT AFTER I LEFT.

Because of that, I feel that I belong to a tougher club than those who went through their training with the protection that the restrictions provide. It's like your parents saying kids today have it easy; they walked to school in the snow, barefoot, on a path made of nails or something.

The restrictions, though, seem to make sense considering the unchecked hours residents were made to work, occasionally resulting in medical errors or accidents. When you are up all night, then have to work the whole next day, it's a whole new kind of pain.

Therefore, I felt somewhat prepared going into having our firstborn, at least for the sleepless nights I had been warned about. I had already gone through intensive sleep deprivation training already: I was a veteran.

Yet, as I am rediscovering with our newborn, you can never be really prepared for what hits you when the baby comes. It's not just being on call once every fourth night, it's every night. It's every day. Even with the naps I am managing to squeeze in, it's the accumulation of a growing sleep debt that I wonder how I'll ever repay. As my husband says, it's like a special kind of war torture.

Our night-times have been challenging. JL sleeps 2 to 2 1/2 hours at a time and then it's time to feed, burp, change diaper, and then rock back asleep. He's 5 weeks now, so nearing that magical 6-week mark that's supposed to mean the summit of fussiness as well as the onset of a longer night-time stretch. I've been re-reading all of my baby sleep books (and trying to resist reading them instead of taking a nap)! He's been having a hard time staying asleep once asleep and our glider is getting HEAVY USE. (We're so grateful for having a really comfortable glider that we've moved into our bedroom.) I've also become reunited with television as I've spent endless hours rocking and numbing my mind with lots of Bravo and TLC shows.

It will get better, I know, and we'll hopefully see some small improvements in the next few weeks. It's got to get better!

At least in comparison to my sleepless nights in residency, I am being kept up by my child and not a patient; it's a little different having to attend to his needs rather than a stranger's. Just a little.