Last night, the baby and I got more sleep than we have in months. I’ll tell you how. But first…
…
Ahhhh, sleep. Probably one of the most talked-about topics amongst new parents…and probably the topic that new parents get talked at about the most by other people. How’s your baby sleeping? Is he sleeping through the night? You should do _______, ________, and _______ if you want him to sleep through the night. That’s what I did and my baby slept through the night at 3 weeks old…he started walking and talking at 4 months and was eating steak by month 6.
Okay, so maybe I went a little far with that last part. But you parents know what I’m talking about, right? How many times have people tried to give you advice for something when you just don’t want to hear about it anymore? Don’t get me wrong, I frequently invite input on many a baby topic because, hey, I’ve never done this before, why not get some insight from someone who has? But one too many helpful hints and, thank you!, information overload. Everything grinds to a halt in this little brain of mine as I become gridlocked in a traffic jam of opposites and extremes.
In the six and a half months that I’ve been a mom, I’ve come to adopt the following mantra of motherhood:
DO WHAT YOU’VE GOTTA DO.
You can seek out advice, read books, attend new mama groups, and Google every last thing that comes up related to your baby so that you can fix it (am I right, new parents?), but at the end of the day, you do what you’ve gotta do.
Every baby is different. Different needs, different personality, different physical and emotional responses to various experiences…different everything.
And every parent is different, even within a couple. Different abilities to tolerate sleep deprivation, fussing, crying, and SCREAMING. Different preferences for the amount of physical contact they have with their baby. Different desires for how to feed and dress and soothe their baby.
And you know what? Every family must do what is best for their particular family situation. This much I’ve learned. I literally and honestly do not judge when I hear about how another mom may respond to her baby’s various needs, even when they are oh so different from my way of doing things.
DO WHAT YOU’VE GOTTA DO.
The reason I bring all this up is because as I have learned how to respond to my particular baby’s needs, I have sometimes often caught myself thinking that some particular baby-related action is what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m supposed to rock my baby to sleep at night in my gentle and loving arms. I’m supposed to let him cry so that he can learn to soothe himself. I’m supposed to put him down in a crib at night. I’m supposed to enjoy this special time of nighttime bonding as I gently rock him to sleep and whisper in his little baby ears about how much I love him and cherish him. In my mind, these are all things that a good mother is expected to do…that she is supposed to do.
Well, as reality would have it, I haven’t been all too successful at any of those things that I thought good moms were supposed to do. Rocking doesn’t help. Crying doesn’t help. He doesn’t stay asleep when he’s in his crib. And — can I be honest? — lately I have despised bedtime. It is not so much a time of bonding as it is a battle of the wills to see who will crack first: him or me. If he cracks, that means he goes to sleep after 30 or more minutes of me bouncing him on the ball as he teases me with false alarms as he drifts off to sleep and then awakes suddenly but a few minutes later — after I think I’m in the clear and he’s finally down for the night — screaming bloody murder. And if I crack? Well…then Daddy takes over. Bedtime has been anything but a memorable bonding time lately. It leaves me frustrated and angry with this blessing that is supposed to be the light of my life. It makes me not want to respond to his late night cries as he wails and screams for what feels like the eleven millionth time and my stomach churns after averaging 2-3 one-hour stretches of sleep per night. It makes me resent him.
And that is so not right.
We’ve done all the basic stuff we thought we were supposed to do, and clearly it’s not been working for us or for him. It’s time for a change of plans.
As we’ve been reading through Elizabeth Pantley’s book, The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night, we’ve been introduced to a variety of scenarios in which babies can be taught to sleep through the night. That is one thing about this book that I love. There’s no “my way or the highway” sort of talk. She acknowledges that babies and parents sleep in a variety of contexts, and she offers suggestions to help sleepers in all of them. She encourages parents to consider the big picture — the environment, the routine, the words you use, the positive or negative associations your baby has with sleep, the way in which you get your baby to sleep — and then make adjustments that match your personal comfort level and your baby’s needs. I love it. She, too, seems to have embraced the mantra.
DO WHAT YOU’VE GOTTA DO.
So what did you do that helped you sleep more than you have in months?! you ask.
As mentioned in my last post, we began implementing a few suggestions from the book to get us started on Operation Sleep. The basics that we introduced involve implementing a dimly lit bedtime routine starting one hour before the anticipated bedtime, nursing him until his suckling slows and then unlatching him before he falls asleep so that he does not rely on sucking to fall asleep, and using key words as he falls asleep. If you want more explanation about these and other suggestions, read the book.
These new strategies have been good, but they’ve been overruled by one small fact — our baby doesn’t sleep well in his crib…by himself. He is a bit of a social sleeper. Ever since he was born, he’s been a snuggler. As a newborn, he loved to sleep on people’s chests and in their arms. As a 2-month-old, he decided that he would only sleep during the day if someone was holding him. And now, as a 6-month-old, he has made it clear that he does not prefer his crib; he prefers mom and dad’s bed. We have tried and tried to do what we thought we were supposed to do. Babies sleep in cribs, not in mommy and daddy’s bed. But you know what? That just doesn’t work for him. Naps in his crib typically last 20-30 minutes and that’s it, but he’ll sleep for 60 minutes or more in the big bed. Nighttime sleep brings cries and screams every 45-60 minutes when he sleeps in his crib, but not in the big bed.
It seems we’ve been trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
We can try and try to force our baby to surrender to our ideas of how babies should sleep. Or we can take the hint and decide to do what helps him (and us) get the most rest.
So we’re co-sleeping. That’s the big change we’ve made. We took the step yesterday by making some changes in our room to ensure that we adhere to safe co-sleeping guidelines. We’re still doing those other things that I mentioned earlier and I really do think that, after 5 days, they are making it easier for our baby to anticipate bedtime and fall asleep at night. But this will help him sleep longer and go back to sleep more quickly when he wakes in the night. It will help me, too. Last night I did not have to exit my bed once over the course of 8 hours. I woke a few times to feed and tend to the baby. But I didn’t have to move more than a few inches. I could rest. It was glorious. I would not have been (and still am not) comfortable with this setup for a newborn. But it’s the right choice for our family at this moment in time.
DO WHAT YOU’VE GOTTA DO.
Pantley offers suggestions for helping (among other types of babies) breastfeeding, co-sleeping babies sleep through the night, so I’m glad that we can at least get off to the right start with this setup. It’s not permanent, and we recognize that it’s not a long-term solution. But it’s what we need right now. I am so glad to be able to be close with my baby after having to be away from him for ten to twelve hours a day on the days that I work. (Side note: I’m pretty sure his nighttime sleep began to deteriorate soon after I went back to work, which makes me feel pretty not awesome as a mom.) I’m happy to be able to nurse him when he’s hungry and shush him back to sleep before he fully wakes. I’m thankful for a supportive husband who recognizes that, when our baby sleeps better, we sleep better. And I’m humored by the fact that, when our baby wakes up in the morning, he coos and blows raspberries and spits on me in a way that is cute and weird and wonderful…
and now it is time to sleep.
linzster
/ February 22, 2012Love your motto: do what you gotta do! I think that applies to so much in parenting.
anniegroves
/ February 21, 2012I love it. Way to find what works
ps – we’ve done co-sleeping at times too!