Wondering Wednesdays Vol. 18: Baby Sleep

You want to know a sure-fire way to really confuse a first-time mom?

Give her reading material on how to get her baby to sleep well.

I’ve never really given much thought on the business of getting my 4 month old to sleep. Everyone always asks me “Does he sleep through the night yet?” Um, no. He is still getting up about every 2 hours to nurse. (Isn’t it obvious he doesn’t sleep all through the night? My hunka-hunka burnin’ love is 18 lbs! There aren’t enough daylight hours to keep him plumped up like that!)

I figured it wasn’t normal for Joe to finally settle down for the night between 11:00 p.m. and midnight. I just chalked it up to his temperament and/or maybe the fact that at his 6:00 a.m. feeding I would bring him into bed with me to nurse and we’d sleep in.

His late-night settling down was a topic I was going to bring up to his doctor. But then I got an email from BabyCenter.com with the subject line of “How much sleep does your baby need?” Ah ha- maybe this will give me some answers! When I clicked the link I was immediately flooded with guilt.

There was a large chart of different infant ages, how much day time sleep and nighttime sleep they need and the approximate number of naps they need to take. In the 3 month-old box the info stated that he should be getting around 5 hours of sleep during the day spread out in 3 naps. Well Joe gets some long naps, then he cat naps throughout the day. I never even really take the time to “time” how long his naps are. Even though the article stresses that every baby is an individual, I started getting a little worried that I was sleep depriving my baby.

I especially started getting worried when I read this: “Often, says BabyCenter sleep expert Jodi Mindell, author of Sleeping Through the Night, if a child has poor sleep habits or refuses to go to bed before 11 at night, his parents will think that he just doesn't need a lot of sleep. That's probably not true — in fact, it's likely that such a child is actually sleep-deprived.”

Then there was a list of questions to determine if your child is sleep deprived:

Does your child fall asleep almost every time he's in a car? Of course he does. I thought driving around was like chloroform for kids.

Do you have to wake your child almost every morning? Mmm… not really. There have been a few times I have had to.

Does your child seem cranky, irritable, or overtired during the day? Yes, just like his momma.

The next sentence stated, “If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these, your child may be getting less sleep than he needs.

D’OH!

I figured it was about time for me to really start to try harder in setting a sleep routine. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I was bound and determined to stick with it.

The first night we took a bath at 7:00 p.m. I gave him a massage with baby lotion, then sat in the rocker with the lights dim and read him my all time favorite Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. I nursed him and rocked him and he drifted off to sleep. It was 8:00.

SUCCESS!

Sure, he still woke up numerous times to nurse but I was expecting that.

The following night was also a success. He had even taken 2 scheduled naps with me during the day. This wasn’t so bad.

Well, I’m sure you know where this story is going.

New Year’s Eve night was the third night of getting Joe to bed early. He went down around 8:30 with relatively no problems.

Then 10:00 rolled around and he started fussing. I walked in and instead of continued fussing he flashed a huge smile that said, “Let’s party!” He wasn’t ready to go to sleep anytime soon.

Long story short, he fought sleep so hard and after awhile his lovely grins became ear-splitting screams. This happened the following night as well.

So what do I do? I hit the books and websites for tips on how to deal with the problem. And, of course, this was a big mistake.

Everywhere I read there were subtle suggestions of the cry it out method. Don’t rock your baby to sleep. (I do that.) Don’t nurse your baby to sleep. (Guilty.) Don’t pick up your baby if he starts crying (Yup, guilty again.)

Everything in my very motherly being tells me to do these things. And it’s not only instinct, but I enjoy rocking him and watch him drift into a deep peaceful sleep. Sure, the first couple of weeks of being a new mom it was a drag to get out of my nice warm bed to nurse him, but now my body has adjusted to not getting a solid 4 hours of sleep and getting up multiple times in the night is second nature.

I remember at Joe’s 2 month well-child check I asked his pediatrician about his major fussiness. I was asking because it was nearly always after he ate so I thought it was a digestion problem. He immediately chalked it up to Joe being overtired. To “help” him sleep better I needed to not nurse him if he needs to be comforted (“You don’t want to turn into a human pacifier,” he says) and to let him cry it out so he can learn to sooth himself to sleep.

**Side note: Joe’s doc is an OK guy. He’s nice and has calmed some of my worries, but he gives me the heebie jeebies. I can’t put my finger on why he does, but he just creeps me out. It doesn’t help that he once wore the same sweater that Freddie Krueger wears. I kid you not. Reason #729 that we want to move.)**

I remember that night I tried the whole cry it out. I lasted ohhhhh…. About 11.7 seconds. I just couldn’t do it. His whimpers got louder. His whimpers turned into fussy noises, then the mad cries started and I swooped up my little boy in my arms to comfort him. It’s like this- you have an itch- you scratch it. You see your baby son crying- you pick him up. I can’t just sit there. I’ve heard of parents who stuff blankets in around the door to block out the sound or who go to other parts of the house to not hear the crying. You’d have to knock me out, tie me up and lock me in a closet a county away for me to not run to his aide.

But here is where I get confused. There are SOOOO many “how to get your baby to sleep to make your life easier and have your baby become a thriving contributor to society” tips. There are so many DO THIS OR ELSE reading materials out there that it gives me a headache. I have found my parenting groove with Dr. William Sears’ book “The Baby Book.” His natural, no-nonsense, attachment style of parenting fits in with my outlook of parenting. His section on getting baby to sleep was/is helpful, but I still have my doubts about myself.

Am I being too much of a helicopter parent? You know, that mother who hovers over her child, never letting him experience things on his own and to learn his own life lessons. Maybe I should wait a little longer to see if Joe will soothe himself to sleep. Maybe I should wait to walk into his room when he starts whimpering. All the cry it out proponents say that if you run to your baby at every cry they will become too reliant on you. He will basically learn that whenever he wants something, all he has to do is cry and mommy and daddy will get it for him.

Now, I don’t pick Joe up every time he cries. Usually I just hold his hand or pat his belly, or stick his paci back in and he drifts off to sleep. But as soon as those whimpers become something more, he’s in my arms.

Am I spoiling him? Suddenly, a vision of Joe pops into my head- he’s in a plush leather chair wearing a smoking jacket. He turns to me and says in a British accent, “Mother dear. Run on over the kitchen and fetch me a chilled glass of milk. Chop, chop.” He then turns back to his friends as they continue their conversation about yachts and caviar.

Am I setting him up for failure? Will my picking him up when he cries, rocking him to sleep, nursing him before bed parenting ways mean he won’t get accepted to college, he’ll live in my basement when he’s 36 and I’ll be cooking all his meals and trying to find him a nice girl to marry? Suddenly, a vision of Joe being like Chazz from the (horrible) movie Wedding Crashers comes to mind.



Basically what I’ve gathered from most baby help books is that if you don’t wash off baby food jars before you open them, if you don’t clean the baby’s spoon between jars, if you don’t show them pictures of black and white zing zag designs and if you use a sippy cup past their first birthday you are setting your child up for an epic fail in life.

Helping your baby learn and grow is essential. Helping them find their independence is important too, but he’s still a baby. He’s can’t be completely independent. He’s going to depend on me for years to come. Where do I find that balance of being a source of comfort for my son while letting him explore the world on his own?

As long as Joe doesn’t become an axe murder, I’ll be fine. (Y’all remember THAT freak out?)