Now that I'm onto kid #2, I like to think that I've learned something about infant sleep. And that would be that they don't sleep well for about a year. I don't care how many people tell me that their babies "slept through the night" at 8 weeks old. Their baby may sleep from midnight until 5 am without waking. Good for them. Mine does too, sometimes. But I'm talking, you go to bed at a normal hour and wake up sometime after 6 am, and the kid sleeps all that time without waking. That takes about a year.
Right now, we're in the real badlands of infant sleep. Anne goes down nice and early, and can sometimes soothe herself back to sleep if she wakes for an abbreviated period. She *usually* gets up twice between 7 pm and 6 am. But she's starting to teethe, and this my friends, commences many months of misery, I'm here to tell you. Sigh.
And this is the other thing I've learned: just when you think you've got the sleep thing down, Whamo! The baby changes their habits. It'll happen every time.
So, last night as I lay awake at 2:30 am, I contemplated the many levels of rating infant sleep.
There are:
(1) This is the cream of the crop. Your baby is a miracle sleeper!
(2) Baby gets up once per night. This is awesome!
(3) Baby gets up a few times a night and this is very age appropriate. You feel lucky that it's not worse.
(4) There seem to be 1-2 too many wakings and you're a bit cranky about it, but not suicidal.
(5) Your baby refuses to sleep and you're wondering how anybody has more than one child.
(6) WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON?! DO YOU THINK IF WE PUT ON SOME MUSIC SHE'D SLEEP?! DO YOU THINK IF I LET HER LAY ON MY CHEST SHE'D SLEEP?! DO YOU THINK IF WE TOOK TURNS BOUNCING HER UP AND DOWN WHILE HUMMING SHE'D SLEEP?!
Last night was one of those #6's. That's just the way it goes sometimes. But at 2 am last night, Mike and I were both downstairs catatonically watching an infomercial about new stoneware pots and pans while Anne sucked voraciously on a cold teething toy and drooled all over my lap. And the thing was, those pots and pans seemed like a really good deal at that time of the night. If we call now, we'll also get a free sauce pan with a $90 value!
Oh well. Some nights are just bad nights. But tonight is a new night.
I hear you. It's actually reassuring to hear, though, that babies don't sleep through the night. When I read that in Elizabeth Pantley's book, I felt so much better. At least all the other parents aren't getting full nights of sleep either!
ReplyDeleteThough I do think by 18 months most kids should be sleeping through the night. Ours was. Now he isn't. Last night was horrific. I added it up and found I got about six hours of sleep ... between when I got in bed at 9:30 and when I got up at 7:30. There were two whole hours of misery in the middle there. He just wouldn't sleep. And every time we'd be most way there, he'd suddenly start chattering to himself and trying to get out of bed.
Right now my hero of a husband is trying to rock him to sleep, because I am all of a sudden incapable of getting my own kid to bed at bedtime. It's so frustrating.
I meant to commiserate, and here I am complaining instead! All I can say is, I hear you. If I had the cure, I'd be rich and famous by now.
Shelia,
ReplyDeleteWe went through this as well with Henry. He slept great from 1 year until just after 2. The the nightmare began again. It was really horrible, so I totally sympathize. Ultimately, what ended up happening is that we'd leave a pillow on our bedroom floor, and when he'd get up in the night, he would come in and sleep on that for the rest of the night. So I guess what the "solution" is is to find something that you can both live with and just do that until he gets a little older and past the stage he's currently at. Hugs!