“Ugh! Our baby does
not want to seep tonight!”
~One of many sleep
related text messages to my Husband
My son was an awesome sleeper as newborn. I
thought we had hit the jackpot. In those early weeks when I really needed
it the most we got some pretty good sleep.
I was getting 4 hour stretches of sleep at a time and if I went to bed early I
could get 8-10 hours with pretty minimal interruption. Not bad!
Things only got easier once we really got the hang ofbreastfeeding. We got into
a rhythm where I would wake him up for a feeding when I went to bed
around 9 or 10 and then he woke up once more for a 3am feeding. No
biggie, I can handle this!
“I’m going to
bed. I don’t care how stupid early it is.” ~text message to the husband
At around 12 weeks old or so things started to change. He started waking more
frequently at night. Much more frequently.
He would go down for the night around 6-6:30 and wake up again at 9 or
so. This was his longest stretch of sleep and I didn't even get
the benefit of it unless I went to bed ridiculously early (which I
sometimes did). From there he would wake up again at 11, 1, 3,
4,5,6.
Really from 3 am on he was in a super light sleep and I often could not put him
down (even right next to me in his co-sleeper!) after nursing him or he would
wake right back up! So from 3 am on more often than not he was sleeping in the
bed with us using me as a human pacifier for the rest of the night. Ok, no problem. It’s a phase,
we will get through it.
“I can’t put a
baby down! Looks like I don’t get dinner tonight! Ugh."
And then things got worse.
Some nights I could not put him down in the evening or he would wake
right up so I ended up holding him all evening and he slept in bed with us all
night.
Even if I could put him down his wakings were all over the place. It
would be something like, down at 6 then wake at 9, 11, 11:30, 2, 3, 3:30, 4, 5,
6. There were several nights where he didn't stay asleep for
more than 45 min (average baby sleep cycle) all night long! This is getting seriously out of
control.
Believe it or not things just continued to get
worse!
He started having trouble napping. His morning
nap started to get shorter and shorter, down to only 45 min. And he started to have trouble taking
his mid-day and afternoon naps at all.
I started to do anything I could think of to help him nap! I would nurse him
for ages, I would walk with him in his baby sling/wrap sometimes for 2-3 miles, I
would drive him around in the car, or bounce and shush him. I pulled out
all the stops. All my Mommy tricks out of the bag. I tried
everything!
Often all this hard work would result in only a 20-30 minute nap if I
could get him to sleep at all. There were several days where he missed
either his mid-day or afternoon nap and sometimes he missed both! Being awake from 10:30 in the morning
until a 6 bedtime is far, far too long for a baby so young! 2 hours awake time, maybe 3 absolute
tops.
I kept trying to just hang in there. I mean, babies don't sleep well, what else
is new? But it felt like things were just spinning out of control.
I was so tired from getting so little sleep at night that it was very
difficult for me to put in all this energy to try to help my baby nap during
the day. To be completely honest I started to fall apart.
I became depressed, irritated, I resented my baby and everything he was
demanding of me. I was feeling very insecure as a Mother. I lost a lot of
confidence that I could give my baby what he needed. We were having big, big
problems!
Part III: Finding a Solution
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