My baby doesn't sleep through the night.
I am up to feed him at least twice, occasionally three times between 9pm and 7am.
I am tired and sometimes I spend the day like a zombie.
There, I said it.
As a new mother I dream of sleep; a full nights sleep, climbing under the covers of my own bed, perhaps a couple of pages of a good book followed by a full 8 hours sleep, uninterrupted, beautiful sleep, waking up slowly, snuggling in the covers and who knows, I might even push my luck and dream of breakfast in bed.....
At the moment that scenario feels about as likely as a lottery win when you haven't even bought a ticket. Sleep seems to monopolise my waking hours; even when I'm not dreaming about it I'm reading about it, talking about it, researching it........when I'm not wishing for sleep, I'm trying everything I can to avoid it, playing games, dancing round the front room. Trying to keep Edward awake in the vain hope that when the magic bedtime hour comes tonight will be the night and he'll sleep through the night!
Apparently 'sleeping through the night' in doctor talk just means 5 hours consecutive sleep, not quite the 8 hours I'm dreaming of but 5 hours would be a start!!! Edward likes 3 hours. You could set a clock by him.
The first two nights after Edward was born were spent in the hospital, Edward was awake all night both nights, the first night I would feed him, he would fall asleep and I would put him in his cot and start to drift off, within minutes he'd be awake and a nurse would be at my side telling me he was hungry, and so she'd pass him to me ( I couldn't get out of bed because of the c-section) and I'd nurse him again, propped up in bed terrified of falling asleep and dropping him, he'd feed, fall asleep and I'd put him down only for the same thing to occur......the second night we went private (long story but the best decision we made). The midwife there was a whole different story, she was amazing and helped me to take Edward into my bed, latch him on and even fall asleep safely with him by my side. Half way through the night she came in and turned us both over, Edward spent the whole night feeding, sleeping, waking and feeding without having to disturb me. I was an instant fan of co-sleeping!
When we came home from the hospital the co sleeping continued; Eddie would sleep for 2-3 hours as long as he was on my chest or in my arms, face down on my chest was his favourite place. As we were in such a small cottage this meant that Eddie and I cuddled up on the sofa each night and became adept at sleeping together without moving, Eddie woke up to feed every few hours but it didnt matter too much as I wasn't disturbed, we also took advantage of the afternoons at home to cuddle up and have a few hours sleep then too. I'm not sure whether it was because Edward was born first thing in the morning or not but he really had his days and nights muddled up.
It wasn't until we moved house and Eddie had his own room that we really thought about him sleeping on his own, I was keen to try and get Eddie to sleep without having to resort to using the 'leave him to cry' tactic, no matter what they say about it not being upsetting in the long term for the baby, I just didn't think that I could handle it myself!! I read the 'No Cry Sleep Solution' and we followed the advice of putting him down to sleep on his own and going to him every time he cried no matter how many times this was; we would pick him up but not talk to him or rock him, just hold him until he calmed and then put him down. The first night Tristan and I went to him over 50 times in an hour and a half between us before he went down for the first time, then he slept for 3 hours until he woke again! We were pretty pleased with that! The following night we persevered and we only had to go to Eddie a dozen times (an improvement!).
The next night I was on my own, I was tired and I just wanted to be able to sink into a deep bath for an hour on my own, as it was I ended up sat outside Edwards bedroom until nearly 11pm before he settled properly. It was tough but we stuck with it and it seemed to work....we were putting Edward to bed at 7.30/8pm and he was waking for a feed at 10pm then midnight, 3am and then waking for the day at 6am. Not too bad but it meant that by the time Tristan came home from work at nearly 7pm I was shattered and already ready to go to bed, we weren't going to see each other at all!
During many of the conversations that I had about sleep I heard from other mothers about how their children had been sleeping through the night, from 6 weeks of age, from 10 weeks of age, from 3 months, each of those ages has passed Edward by and he still likes waking up. We now put Edward to be at around 8.30pm in the hope that his day will start later, it worked for a few nights and then the constipation arrived! Poor little bubber, he was as keen as I was to stay asleep, he kept his little eyes squeezed tight shut but he wriggled and writhed quite clearly in pain.....I lay him next to me and rubbed his tummy in clockwise motions hoping to hear the little trumpy sounds associated with a bowel movement! Around 6 am I'd give in and we'd get up, I'd run him a warm bath and quite often that worked, never been so happy to see a bath full of poop!
Edward still has constipation, he is also teething and he has a chesty cough that breaks my heart, to be honest I'd have trouble sleeping with all that lot going on and I'm desperate for sleep!!! And I'm okay with that...I've been up tearing my hair out, I've beaten myself up about failing as everyone else seems to have a sleeping baby but now I'm embracing the statement, 'Babies don't have sleep problems, adults do.'!
I'm lucky enough not to have to get up for work in the morning, hell, I dont even have to leave the house if I dont want to, so I'm not letting the lack of sleep be a problem, I'm not stressing over set bedtimes, I'm not beating myself up because he sleeps better when he shares with me, I'm not worried about how many times he feeds in the night and I'm much happier. He's 4 months old, he's got years ahead of him for sleeping, and no doubt if he's like his father, many more nights where he'll choose not to go to bed at all.
I've decided that my baby doesn't have a sleep problem because I don't have a problem!
No comments:
Post a Comment