Sophia & Sleep

circa August 2013

In the beginning, Sophia slept. She slept so much that we got in trouble. The night after she was born, the three of us were inches from each other and exhausted from the birth. I closed my eyes at midnight and opened them again at 8 am. Our nurse scolded us for not feeding the baby during the night. 

During the first few months we marveled at how we could lay Sophia down awake in her crib and she would drift off to sleep for long stretches.  Shortly thereafter I found myself searching the internet for "four month old not sleeping" and was reassured by posts entitled "four month old wakefulness period", thinking this must mean it is only a four month old thing and then goes away. Little did I know, months 4-9 were going to be "wakeful".

We were never truly sleep deprived, thanks in part to flexible work schedules. Yet, I have described the "not knowing when the baby will finally sleep" as harder than labor. Labor was a really hard day- but I knew it would be just one day. 

It was also the first aspect of parenting that led to conflict for us. Once in the middle of the night, Joshua asked me if I wanted him to go pick up a crying Sophia. I snapped back, "I want you to make a decision as her parent". The next day I apologized with the recognition that he was attempting to partner with me in these decisions, and to help.

 When it came to crying and sleep, I heard a full spectrum of opinions. "Babies should never cry" (it means you missed earlier sleep signals like eye rubbing), "Crying is how babies communicate" (and you should respond), and "Crying is how babies exercise their lungs" (and you should let them do it). 

I did some sleep research. Almost everything I read was contradictory, "if you nurse to sleep, the baby won't be able to fall asleep any other way" vs. "breast milk contains tryptophan and is naturally designed to lull babies to sleep." I also read that "unless you sleep train, your baby will NEVER sleep through the night" and decided that the purpose of this statement was solely to sell books. 

I wasn't convinced Sophia was trying to manipulate us when she wasn't sleeping, but I did struggle with whether she was thinking, "they are never coming back" vs. "they should come back so we can play."

 I had read that when a baby cries for an extended period of time this state of stress can be physically unhealthy. I also wondered if Sophia was crying more with our method of always going to her, because she wasn't "learning to self-soothe" over a period of days instead of what seemed like endless months.

Ultimately I followed our pediatrician's advice, which is, "Get off the internet and trust your instincts." 

For us, this meant going to bed not knowing if you were going to be up every two hours or less. It meant turning in at 9 most nights because of this uncertainty. It meant knowing which floor boards creaked outside her nursery and avoiding them upon exiting. 

Sometimes Sophia unintentionally spent hours of the night sleeping in our bed (ie I fell asleep while nursing her) and other times it was very intentional (ie at 4:30 am we were done shuttling her back and forth from the nursery).

The most useful advice I received was that sleeping through the night is developmental, similar to walking. That babies aren't designed to sleep like adults upon exiting the womb, and that it will happen when each individual baby is ready. At ten months, Sophia started to sleep 9,10,11 hours stretches in a row (sometimes). 

For some parents this won't start until weaning, or 18 months or older. For all parents, there will be future night wakings due to teething, illness, nightmares, etc. I don't miss getting jolted out of sleep by my daughter's cries, or feeling frustrated and tired by lack of sleep. But I do find that I miss her when it has been 11 hours without a visit, and I tease Joshua about wanting to go in and wake her up.