My 5:30am woes ended Monday (two Mondays ago now; it took me a while to complete this post), when I did nothing differently than I had been doing, but he decided to take pity on me and sleep till 7:32am :D VICTORY! Yeah, I just said I didn't do anything differently, but I SURVIVED (and didn't kill him, either), so I'm taking the win on this one. Of course, as is the way with my child, I will now be punished for my gloating with another early morning in the immediate future...but maybe not :)
By this point (two years in to mommihood), I have come to realize that babies often make liars out of you, and to expect the unexpected, but most importantly, to remember that everything is a phase, and early wakings, too, shall pass - it just doesn't feel that way at the time :s Somehow, I have prevailed! In my last post, I mentioned my heavy reliance on friends, family, and my Blackberry. But I had a few other resources, too...
One of my found-friends, Lindsay (a relative of a friend of mine who must have voiced her sleep-related desperation a time or two, enabling my friend to see a potential match and put us in contact with one another!), led me to two different forms of help.
The first was a sleep doula - YES! There are people who specialize in infant sleep!!! They will come to your home and stay overnight and either help you take care of your baby, instilling confidence in your own abilities, suggesting ways to help your baby sleep, and just sharing the burden...or they will do it FOR YOU, allowing you to take a break and get some rest (after taking an Ativan (if you're not breastfeeding - or drinking a few glasses (bottles!) of wine and pumping and dumping if you are!) and putting in earplugs, of course). I was SO jealous. I looked up Halton Doulas who had helped Lindsay so much, but sadly for me, such services came with a hefty pricetag (like, thousands), and my husband vetoed that possibility. I found another doula service that offered a compromise: Precious Moments Doulas offered sleep support, but by email or phone, with one in-home visit to start. This doula was still a big expense, but hundreds instead of thousands. But...my husband vetoed that idea, too. In retrospect, I think the support I might have gotten would have been well worth the price - and perhaps helped OUR relationship, too, but anyway...
When I called Precious Moments, the woman there gave me a list of references, and one couple that I called was unexpectedly helpful. That mommi understood exactly what I was dealing with and had had a similar experience with her daughter, however she also understood my reluctance (actually, my husband's outright refusal) with regard to the price of hiring a sleep doula, even a phone/email one. She told me about a website that offered free information and worksheets to develop a sleep plan for your child, and gave lots of tips that were similar to what she was taught with Precious Moments. That site is ultimately what I used: The Baby Sleep Site was a jackpot!
Nicole Johnson is the brains behind The Baby Sleep Site, and offers lots of free information, as well as paid consultations. I paid. Check the site for updated prices, but I think it was $80 for 10 "tickets". A ticket is a new problem, and there might be one or ten or twenty emails exchanged in solving that problem, but it still counts as one ticket. It wasn't rocket science, and the advice Nicole gave me was similar or the same as that I got from friends Kara and Lindsay, and from two books I will mention in a minute...but it was nice to hear it from an "expert" (Nicole is modest enough to explain that she has no formal training on baby sleep - she learned by trial and error, books, etcetera, in the process of trying to work with her own sleep-challenged child, but now has lots of experience helping others), one I could whine/complain/cry to via email at any given time, knowing that this woman was PAID to listen to me do so! My friends were great for that same purpose, but I was aware of how boring it must have been for them, how I was just repeating myself, same thing day after day... :s Anyhow, Nicole replies within 48 hours to a new problem, and faster once she has engaged in helping you solve it. Her replies are compassionate and understanding, and written in user-friendly language. More than worth my $80! Oh - and I should mention that she offers multiple options for you to try, so if you're not okay with "Cry It Out", she understands, and offers alternatives.
As I mentioned, there were two books that were also life savers. The first is The Sleepeasy Solution: The Exhausted Parent's Guide to Getting Your Child to Sleep from Birth to Age 5, recommended by Lindsay. Great book, well laid-out, easy to understand. Gives comprehensive information and game plans to help get your child sleeping better. The authors also have a website that has sleep planners and worksheets you can download for free. Check it out here. I highly recommend this book, and the methods it explains. Lindsay said it had worked for four friends of hers, her own son, and then mine.
My Sleep Guru friend, Kara, had used another book that I now refer to as The Sleep Bible. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child is much like The Sleepeasy Solution, but much loooonger. [sigh: a big chunk of text went missing from here and now I have to piece it back together, and it won't be as good...] The length might be off-putting for some, but for an obsessed Sleep-Nazi like me, it was like crack. Or whatever highly-addictive upper Nazis like. Finally, here was someone TELLING me what to do (remember: sleep deprivation had rendered my decision making abilities obsolete), why it was right, and why I would not permanently damage my child from following them. A note on "right": Weissbluth's methods were right for me, and highly recommend them - but I am open-minded enough to realize that they're not for everyone, and believe that you should find what works for your family and do that, regardless of what outsiders say. Take my recommendations for what they're worth. But did I mention Cindy Crawford wrote the forward for the book? Maybe she has more sway than lowly old me ;)
I'd love it if followers would share their own baby-sleep struggles and successes here, perhaps engaging in a friendly debate of different sleep beliefs and practices...? But if you DO comment, please keep it friendly. You will notice that your comments do not appear immediately anymore, because I have had to add the "comment moderation" option, due to a rather mean comment on my 5:30am post :s I was quite surprised and hurt by the comment, because to date, all of the feedback I've received has been positive and encouraging. However, I realize that by sharing a lot of personal information and thoughts in a public forum such as this blog, I open myself up to scrutiny and negative feedback, too, and that's okay. I didn't delete the negative post, because I do want followers to be able to share truthfully, even when that means disagreeing with me. Everything I'm sharing is only my personal experience, and I welcome constructive criticism and alternate suggestions! But please do so in a beneficial and community-building spirit. This blog is meant for good, not evil ;) So, please comment freely, and I will approve everything that isn't mean-spirited. I want to promote the exchange of ideas, but not the ridicule of any one person. THANKS!
To end on a positive note, I'M HAVING A CONTEST! I have my four copies of Go the F**k to Sleep now, and intend to give three to friends - and blog followers count as friends (yeah, that sounds SO lame)! So please find the post that shares the book's title (yes, shameless attempt to get you to search through past posts) and share your own sleep-related struggle in a comment - best (worst!) story wins a copy of Go the F**k to Sleep! :)
Wednesday 27 July 2011
Saturday 16 July 2011
5:30am and the Big Deal About Sleep(lessness)
I've been meaning to write another post for a few weeks now - the big post - the one on sleep: sleeplessness, sleep deprivation, sleep issues... But it's summer holidays, and I've been busy taking my son on little excursions, having playdates, walks, lots of fun. Sounds relaxing, huh? Except I'm stressed beyond belief because my days have been starting at 5:30am all of a sudden, and I've been dealing with the very issues that almost drove me mad within the first few months of mommihood. You know what? I'm in such a bad mood (place!), I had to force myself to be cutesy and say mommihood (which I'm only doing for literary consistency).
Sleep, sleep...wherefore art thou, sleep? Any non-parents, as well as any mommi (or daddy (in this mood, there's not a chance I'm going to write daddi) who had an easy-sleeping baby will not understand any of my sleep-related posts. We've all had a few rough nights, right? But the sleep deprivation experienced with a newborn is nothing like those rough mornings after a wild kegger back in college (or, for many of you baby-free people, last night). Once you've had a child, there IS no "sleeping in" - ever. Well, there is, but the term takes on a whole new meaning. Sleeping in, to me, sleeping in is now anything past 7am. 7:30 is a luxury I dream not of. This morning, I would have been elated with 6.
My now-two-year-old has recently decided to wake at 5:30am every morning, regardless of when he goes to bed. He's also decided to refuse the nap I've come to depend on (yes, I, not he) every other day. The inconsistency, coupled with sleep deprivation, honestly makes me insane. Which takes me right back to the beginning, and why I wanted to write this blog in the first place...
That whole "sleeping like a baby" thing? Utter crap. Lies! I HOPE you never sleep like a baby! At least not like my baby. My kid never slept.
For months, I swear he never slept more than 3 hours at a time - and that was at night; more often he'd sleep for an hour and a half. Throughout the day, it was never more than 45 minutes - but usually more like 15-20. The only time he'd sleep longer than that was when in motion (so, in the stroller or in the car - that swing business never worked for us), which would infuriate me, because I desperately needed the sleep, too, and I obviously couldn't sleep while driving or walking.
He'd also take "boob naps", where he'd fall asleep nursing. If the kid is hungry, I'm going to feed him...but some babies nurse for comfort (well, I guess they all do to start), and THAT gets annoying - especially for mommies like me, who never liked the breastfeeding. So, he'd be eating, but would fall asleep and stop suckling...so I'd try to de-latch him...but he'd do a quick, insistent suck, pretending he was still eating...fall asleep...repeat. He was perfectly content, but I was not.
After a few months, he did start sleeping longer stretches at night, but there was always an hour plus in between those stretches. He was never a nurse and go back to sleep kind of baby. It was always a long, involved process to get him back to sleep, regardless of time of day.
He was never content just sitting with me, awake. If he fell asleep on me, I could sit, and he'd stay sleeping. But I couldn't sit or rock with him and expect him to stay content or fall asleep. We had to be in motion: walking, swaying, bouncing - ALL THE TIME. On the upside, I lost all my baby weight (plus another 15lbs) really quickly. People would ask me how I did it, was I working out, etcetera...? Um, no: I was walking and bouncing 20 hours a day, lifting 10-30lbs (baby plus ridiculous infant carrier) for the duration of those 20 hours, not sleeping, and not having time to eat - there's my secret! But I don't recommend it :s
People tell you: "sleep when the baby sleeps" - but what if yours just doesn't?? The only thing worse than no nap is a failed nap attempt - to try to sleep, only to be woken just before you get there, or just after.
Did I mention that my son's "nights" didn't start until 1am or so? Before that, he wouldn't sleep any more than 45 minutes, daytime nap-style, so I didn't bother trying to actually go to bed before then anyway. And mornings started anytime after 5am. It made for extremely long days!
Baby Blues, thanks to the hormonal flux after childbirth, coupled with this sleeplessness, plus just all the new-found stresses of being a mommi made a very bad combo. I was miserable. It got to the point where I couldn't enjoy anything. If someone came to visit me, that would inevitably be the one time my son decided to have a longer than 20 minutes nap, and I'd spend the visit thinking bitterly about the sleep I was missing out on, instead of enjoying the company. I became unable to make decisions. I actually remember my mom coming over and sitting on the front porch with me, offering to watch the baby for me so I could sleep...but I needed to go grocery shopping, and do laundry, and sweep the floors...and I honestly could not decide where to start. And I was aware of it. I said to her, "Can you just tell me what I'm going to do? Because I can't decide; I can't think straight; I just can't do it." To anyone who hasn't experienced this, I'm sure I'm not conveying the desperation I experienced. But I'm tearing up just writing about it, remembering.
My desperation got so bad, I found myself approaching random strangers at WalMart, searching for someone who might have felt the same way I did. Okay, I didn't do the approaching...but randoms approach YOU when you're out with a new baby. And if anyone of them asked me how I was or whether he was a "good" baby (which has always annoyed me - I mean, he was a terrible SLEEPER, not a bad BABY!), I would attack! - telling them how tired and defeated I felt, asking them if their babies had slept well, hoping for a no and for some secret to surviving it.
I didn't stop at WalMart for my support group of random strangers, either...I started trolling online message boards for tired parents. I found some, but it wasn't enough - online strangers didn't do it for me. But ONLINE did. I found a few supporters that I actually knew, and kept in touch with them via various electronic mediums. My Blackberry smartphone became my lifeline. I was so lonely in my desperation that I needed that contact, that validation, that "feel good" at all hours of the day. This was good and bad and lent itself to both helpful and unhealthy interactions that I won't expand on here. Still, for better or worse, contact with supportive people got me through some really dark times.
Why did I feel so alone? I had a husband, I had my baby, I had a lot of help from my mom, and a little from my friends (friend-loss after mommihood is fodder for another post)... But no one else was actually experiencing the life-change and sleeplessness and hormonal flux I was; no one really understood, just as many followers of this blog will not understand it either. People kept saying, "Enjoy this time while it lasts - they're little for such a short time" - but I was NOT enjoying it, and I felt like a terrible failure because of that. Don't misunderstand me: I always loved my child - more than anything I'd ever felt before. My sleep deprivation-driven desperation never interfered with my ability to care for him, to be sweet to him, to put him first. But I knew that the sleep-obsessed crazy wasn't how mommies were supposed to feel! I knew I was boring my non-mommi friends with my constant talk of sleep. I've mentioned my marital breakdown several times before this, so you can imagine I wasn't getting much support from that avenue (I credit the lack of support in parenthood as a major factor in our demise, actually, but in fairness, I know that the stranger-approaching, sleep-obsessed, miserable me wasn't easy to deal with either :s).
The sleep thing did get easier. My son started sleeping through the night (after extensive sleep training - again, another post). But before that, something else helped: I found a few friends (real-life, real-time friends!) who DID get it, who HAD experienced it...and that made a huge difference in my life. I just wanted to know that I wasn't alone in the battle against sleeplessness, that my baby wasn't the only one who did not "sleep like a baby", and that I wasn't a horrible failure at mommihood because I didn't enjoy every aspect of it.
So, THANK YOU Lindsay and Kara, who lived it with me (Lindsay with a similarly sleep-challenged baby, and Kara, who became my Sleep Coach/Guru). Thank you to Karen and Tara, who didn't have the same experience, but who listened without complaint anyway. To Cassandra and Krista and Vendy, who became baby-friends (friends who evolved their friendships with me to accommodate my new lifestyle). To so many people who made a big difference through little acts of kindness; I'm sorry that I'm not mentioning you all individually, but I love you just as much!
Enough mush. I'm tired, and that's not my style anyway. Here is my point: if you don't feel like you think mommies are supposed to feel, it's okay, and you're not alone. I'm writing this blog to share that.
Some babies are shitty sleepers. I have one of them. And it sucks. And it gets better, but then it gets worse again! Everything is a phase (unfortunately the good things, too). But even those sleep-challenged babies are worth every sleepless moment :) That won't stop me from complaining about it, though!
More to come. Probably at 5:30am tomorrow morning :s
I'd love it if followers would actually comment and commiserate, but you seem to prefer to message me privately on facebook instead. That's cool - the sleepless are a secret-sect...but I know you're out there!!!
6 hours till naptime...
Sleep, sleep...wherefore art thou, sleep? Any non-parents, as well as any mommi (or daddy (in this mood, there's not a chance I'm going to write daddi) who had an easy-sleeping baby will not understand any of my sleep-related posts. We've all had a few rough nights, right? But the sleep deprivation experienced with a newborn is nothing like those rough mornings after a wild kegger back in college (or, for many of you baby-free people, last night). Once you've had a child, there IS no "sleeping in" - ever. Well, there is, but the term takes on a whole new meaning. Sleeping in, to me, sleeping in is now anything past 7am. 7:30 is a luxury I dream not of. This morning, I would have been elated with 6.
My now-two-year-old has recently decided to wake at 5:30am every morning, regardless of when he goes to bed. He's also decided to refuse the nap I've come to depend on (yes, I, not he) every other day. The inconsistency, coupled with sleep deprivation, honestly makes me insane. Which takes me right back to the beginning, and why I wanted to write this blog in the first place...
That whole "sleeping like a baby" thing? Utter crap. Lies! I HOPE you never sleep like a baby! At least not like my baby. My kid never slept.
For months, I swear he never slept more than 3 hours at a time - and that was at night; more often he'd sleep for an hour and a half. Throughout the day, it was never more than 45 minutes - but usually more like 15-20. The only time he'd sleep longer than that was when in motion (so, in the stroller or in the car - that swing business never worked for us), which would infuriate me, because I desperately needed the sleep, too, and I obviously couldn't sleep while driving or walking.
He'd also take "boob naps", where he'd fall asleep nursing. If the kid is hungry, I'm going to feed him...but some babies nurse for comfort (well, I guess they all do to start), and THAT gets annoying - especially for mommies like me, who never liked the breastfeeding. So, he'd be eating, but would fall asleep and stop suckling...so I'd try to de-latch him...but he'd do a quick, insistent suck, pretending he was still eating...fall asleep...repeat. He was perfectly content, but I was not.
After a few months, he did start sleeping longer stretches at night, but there was always an hour plus in between those stretches. He was never a nurse and go back to sleep kind of baby. It was always a long, involved process to get him back to sleep, regardless of time of day.
He was never content just sitting with me, awake. If he fell asleep on me, I could sit, and he'd stay sleeping. But I couldn't sit or rock with him and expect him to stay content or fall asleep. We had to be in motion: walking, swaying, bouncing - ALL THE TIME. On the upside, I lost all my baby weight (plus another 15lbs) really quickly. People would ask me how I did it, was I working out, etcetera...? Um, no: I was walking and bouncing 20 hours a day, lifting 10-30lbs (baby plus ridiculous infant carrier) for the duration of those 20 hours, not sleeping, and not having time to eat - there's my secret! But I don't recommend it :s
People tell you: "sleep when the baby sleeps" - but what if yours just doesn't?? The only thing worse than no nap is a failed nap attempt - to try to sleep, only to be woken just before you get there, or just after.
Did I mention that my son's "nights" didn't start until 1am or so? Before that, he wouldn't sleep any more than 45 minutes, daytime nap-style, so I didn't bother trying to actually go to bed before then anyway. And mornings started anytime after 5am. It made for extremely long days!
Baby Blues, thanks to the hormonal flux after childbirth, coupled with this sleeplessness, plus just all the new-found stresses of being a mommi made a very bad combo. I was miserable. It got to the point where I couldn't enjoy anything. If someone came to visit me, that would inevitably be the one time my son decided to have a longer than 20 minutes nap, and I'd spend the visit thinking bitterly about the sleep I was missing out on, instead of enjoying the company. I became unable to make decisions. I actually remember my mom coming over and sitting on the front porch with me, offering to watch the baby for me so I could sleep...but I needed to go grocery shopping, and do laundry, and sweep the floors...and I honestly could not decide where to start. And I was aware of it. I said to her, "Can you just tell me what I'm going to do? Because I can't decide; I can't think straight; I just can't do it." To anyone who hasn't experienced this, I'm sure I'm not conveying the desperation I experienced. But I'm tearing up just writing about it, remembering.
My desperation got so bad, I found myself approaching random strangers at WalMart, searching for someone who might have felt the same way I did. Okay, I didn't do the approaching...but randoms approach YOU when you're out with a new baby. And if anyone of them asked me how I was or whether he was a "good" baby (which has always annoyed me - I mean, he was a terrible SLEEPER, not a bad BABY!), I would attack! - telling them how tired and defeated I felt, asking them if their babies had slept well, hoping for a no and for some secret to surviving it.
I didn't stop at WalMart for my support group of random strangers, either...I started trolling online message boards for tired parents. I found some, but it wasn't enough - online strangers didn't do it for me. But ONLINE did. I found a few supporters that I actually knew, and kept in touch with them via various electronic mediums. My Blackberry smartphone became my lifeline. I was so lonely in my desperation that I needed that contact, that validation, that "feel good" at all hours of the day. This was good and bad and lent itself to both helpful and unhealthy interactions that I won't expand on here. Still, for better or worse, contact with supportive people got me through some really dark times.
Why did I feel so alone? I had a husband, I had my baby, I had a lot of help from my mom, and a little from my friends (friend-loss after mommihood is fodder for another post)... But no one else was actually experiencing the life-change and sleeplessness and hormonal flux I was; no one really understood, just as many followers of this blog will not understand it either. People kept saying, "Enjoy this time while it lasts - they're little for such a short time" - but I was NOT enjoying it, and I felt like a terrible failure because of that. Don't misunderstand me: I always loved my child - more than anything I'd ever felt before. My sleep deprivation-driven desperation never interfered with my ability to care for him, to be sweet to him, to put him first. But I knew that the sleep-obsessed crazy wasn't how mommies were supposed to feel! I knew I was boring my non-mommi friends with my constant talk of sleep. I've mentioned my marital breakdown several times before this, so you can imagine I wasn't getting much support from that avenue (I credit the lack of support in parenthood as a major factor in our demise, actually, but in fairness, I know that the stranger-approaching, sleep-obsessed, miserable me wasn't easy to deal with either :s).
The sleep thing did get easier. My son started sleeping through the night (after extensive sleep training - again, another post). But before that, something else helped: I found a few friends (real-life, real-time friends!) who DID get it, who HAD experienced it...and that made a huge difference in my life. I just wanted to know that I wasn't alone in the battle against sleeplessness, that my baby wasn't the only one who did not "sleep like a baby", and that I wasn't a horrible failure at mommihood because I didn't enjoy every aspect of it.
So, THANK YOU Lindsay and Kara, who lived it with me (Lindsay with a similarly sleep-challenged baby, and Kara, who became my Sleep Coach/Guru). Thank you to Karen and Tara, who didn't have the same experience, but who listened without complaint anyway. To Cassandra and Krista and Vendy, who became baby-friends (friends who evolved their friendships with me to accommodate my new lifestyle). To so many people who made a big difference through little acts of kindness; I'm sorry that I'm not mentioning you all individually, but I love you just as much!
Enough mush. I'm tired, and that's not my style anyway. Here is my point: if you don't feel like you think mommies are supposed to feel, it's okay, and you're not alone. I'm writing this blog to share that.
Some babies are shitty sleepers. I have one of them. And it sucks. And it gets better, but then it gets worse again! Everything is a phase (unfortunately the good things, too). But even those sleep-challenged babies are worth every sleepless moment :) That won't stop me from complaining about it, though!
More to come. Probably at 5:30am tomorrow morning :s
I'd love it if followers would actually comment and commiserate, but you seem to prefer to message me privately on facebook instead. That's cool - the sleepless are a secret-sect...but I know you're out there!!!
6 hours till naptime...
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