A good night’s sleep and some exercise?? Yesterday’s good feeling seems but a faint memory today. Baby woke up six times last night. Six times. (I think he is trying to get his two top teeth in.)
This is my third child. The older two were terrible sleepers too. So, obviously, the common denominator is either my behavior or their genes… or both. It lasted until about the age of 3. Peanut, who is now 8, sleeps soundly for 12 hours every night and sleeps through most noise, including the baby waking and crying. So eventually, I know baby will grow out of it. In the meantime, it is very hard to deal with. I am certain this is a form of torture somewhere, to never get more than an hour and a half of sleep at a time. You can’t dream properly that way, and it really messes you up.
Over the years I have been given every well-intentioned piece of sleeping advice that was ever concocted. Some of it I tried with my first child. None of it worked for her. She was the worst of the three by far, she was a preemie who literally woke up if the toilet flushed or the neighbor turned on their dining room light, which you could barely see through the blinds in her room. My mom said “don’t keep the house quiet while she’s sleeping and she won’t wake up when there is noise.” I stood there and blinked. “So let me get this straight,” I said, “instead of laying down to sleep myself so I can keep my sanity, I should crank up the radio to eleven during her naps so that she can sleep better??”
And let’s not forget the ever popular “let them cry it out” technique. I also tried this with my first child. Once. It was horrible. And she refused to EVER go in her crib again. I’m not kidding. From that moment on, when we approached her crib or she realized she was in it, she screamed bloody murder. She literally never slept in the crib again.
The real lesson I learned is that it is worse to try 10 different things and have none of them work, because you will have screwed things up even more and for a longer period of time. Pick one thing, the one thing that you are most comfortable with, and always do that. Your baby will associate that with sleep, and it will do you more good in the long run than trying a bunch of different things that someone else suggested, someone who, by the way, doesn’t have to listen to the baby scream or operate on five hours of interrupted sleep the next day.
The problem with all the advice is the basic premise: that your child’s waking patterns are in your control, and that if your child doesn’t sleep through the night, you are failing as a parent. I’m just not buying it anymore. I believe babies wake up because they are not physically developed such that they can sleep through the night. And besides, if we can control other people’s sleep patterns, then why can’t I get my hubby to stop getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom? Perhaps I should stick him in a crib with bars and let him cry it out? Or better yet, why can’t I get my cat to leave me alone in the middle of the night? Surely there has to be a solution there?
Sorry, I guess I’m just a little cranky today. Ah well… there’s always tomorrow.
