Niranjana, Melissa and Andy Perdue

Before I became a dad last fall, I was informed by dozens upon dozens of parents that I would be sleep-deprived. In fact, I was informed I should take every opportunity to sleep before Niranjana arrived because I surely would not get much shut-eye after she gets here.

I'm here to tell you that I've not gotten this much sleep since I was a teen-ager.

When Miss N arrived, she slept on a mattress on the floor of our bedroom. During the going-to-sleep process, all of us would have to be there with the lights out or she wouldn't go to sleep. We figured she didn't want to miss out on any fun. At first, we would get her to sleep, then sneak downstairs and watch some TV or get a little work done. Once, we even watched DaVinci Code in bed on my laptop with the earbuds in. At some point in the night, she would often crawl into our bed and sleep between us. After a few weeks of this (and as the sun began to set earlier), Niranjana dropped any pretenses of sleeping on her mattress and simply slept in the middle of our bed from the start.

One night, I was waiting for her to fall asleep. Even though it was only 9:30 p.m., I must have dozed off because I awoke about 10 hours later! Except when I have a project or report due, this is the typical routine. I used to go to bed around 11 or midnight, and now I'm dropping off well before 11 most nights and waking up around 7:30.

Niranjana is supposed to get 12 hours of sleep each day. She's getting at least 10 hours overnight because she sleeps just as much as I do. She picks up the additional sleep during nap time at school.

Ah, glorious sleep!