The Land of Nod, that Once I Knew

It’s 5:15 am, and I can hear the call to prayer echoing outside my windows, a block down the street.  It has become the rhythm of my daily life, the markers of my day and the lullaby to which my baby falls asleep every night.

Sleep.  The reason I am awake at 5:15 a.m. is because my daughter is not a big fan of sleep.  I have been up since approximately 2 a.m.  At that time I was far too groggy to look at a clock.  Now, I am far too awake, after 2 ½ hours of cycling between being climbed on by a giggling baby, nursing a cranky one, crying, and whispering back and forth with my husband as we devise useless strategies to convince the Bean that it is the middle of the night.  On her own, at 4:30 am, she drifted off and I came out to the living room to enjoy some peaceful snacking and reading in the eerie silence of the early morning.

At almost ten months, the Bean still wakes numerous times at night and usually accepts only nursing when she wakes.  We have tried having her in our bed and beside our bed.  We have tried walking, bottle feeding, bouncing, wearing in the carrier, singing.  We have put on white noise, tried to establish a bedtime routine, provided her with a lovey.  Yet it would seem that Bean hasn’t read any of the books on baby sleep.  At hours that all decent people are blissfully snoozing, she is up eating or practicing her dance moves while sitting on mommy’s head.  It makes it rather hard to feel rested, frankly.  

I think I have become an expert in baby sleep strategies, in the sense that I have read numerous articles and a few books on the matter.  I could tell you about the spectrum of approaches, ranging from the hard-core cry-it-out (CIO) methods by extinction—in which baby is put in a room and the door is kept shut until morning—to “attachment parenting” methods, in which wakeful babies are seen as a developmentally normal phenomenon and their needs are attended to by both parents, usually in the same room and often the same bed.  I could tell you about the options in-between, such as Ferber’s “graduated extinction” approach (parents coming in to soothe at gradually increasing intervals) or attended CIO methods, made popular by the book “Good Night Sleep Tight”, in which parents sit next to their babies while they cry and move their chair slowly toward the door and out of the room over the course of time.

Before we actually had a living, breathing baby, I would have told you that I was absolutely horrified at the thought of cry-it-out methods that leave baby alone.  As a speech pathologist I really value early communication, and crying is the earliest form of it.  I would have said that were most definitely in the attachment parenting camp but that we were not averse to letting our baby cry sometimes as long as we were there by her side.  As Dr. Sears puts it in “The Baby Sleep Book”, would you toilet train your child by locking them in the bathroom until they figure out how to use the toilet?  Babies are biologically primed to be wakeful because they need to eat and be close to their mothers, and their lighter sleeping patterns are a protective mechanism against SIDS.  (See resources below)

At almost ten months in, I completely understand why people let their babies cry-it-out.  Sleep deprivation is terrible.  It turns normally sane people into a cranky, non-functional mess.  Add to the sleep deprivation a host of other factors we’ve faced this first year—an international move with accompanying jet lag, setting up a new home, learning a new language- and it’s not a pretty picture.   

Let me tell a few things about our daughter.  I am rather impressed and awestruck by her resistance to sleep.  

Here is the approximate timeline of our sleep journey:

Up until 4-6 weeks old: The Bean, like every newborn, slept constantly.  We were setting an alarm to wake us all up for feedings.  We spoke highly of her amazing ability to sleep.  We spoke too soon.

6 weeks to 2 months old:  She was diagnosed and had surgery for a tongue tie, explaining why nursing had been living heck, and why she felt the need to eat c-o-n-s-t-a-n-t-l-y.  Around this age, she began fighting any and every attempt to convince her to take naps or to sleep at night.  While other newborns were snoozing peacefully in their car seats or strollers, we were walking/feeding/babywearing/snuggling/screaming for up to an hour or more for every nap.  She did love breastfeeding, and I still obsessively fed her at every opportunity because I worried about her weight gain.  I bought the book “No Cry Sleep Solution” to try to help us all, and started un-latching her at the end of nursing sessions before she was completely asleep.

3-4 months old: Screaming from sun-up to sundown, and several night wakings with screaming, too.  I started a serious elimination diet, and finally found out that eggs in my diet were causing the reflux.  I also started having low milk supply from the previous tongue tie, and added in multiple pumping sessions to my day.  The three month growth spurt hit, and the Bean continued the frequent small feedings necessitated by reflux and habituated from tongue tie.  She wanted to spend all night latched on to me nursing in bed.  I cried and complained and shouted at her and Kevin; he attempted to soothe her in my place, but she wouldn’t take anything else.  She also began refusing to let her dad put her down for naps, maybe because of the extra need for milk from the growth spurt.  She did take nice, long, regular naps after I nursed her down.

4 months: We moved overseas.  For a month, I was a walking zombie- doing Arabic language lessons in the morning, and up all night long with a hungry, jet-lagged baby.  Naps went hay-wire again.  My milk supply probably did, too.  After agonizing a little bit and looking at the research, we experimented for a couple weeks putting her to sleep on her stomach.  Nothing doing.

5 months: We tried having Kevin take over some of the night feedings, but I couldn’t keep up with the pumping.  Sometimes, she cried even with the bottle.  After one night where she hard-screamed for an hour with dad, I nursed her back to sleep and we gave up that plan.  

6 months: Bean started learning how to roll over and go to sleep on her own a little better after nursing. I tried putting her in a pack-n-play by the bed at night, but I missed having her in our bed and she didn’t wake any less.  I was pulling her into bed to nurse and then putting her back in the pack-n-play again afterwards.  How do other moms have the energy for this?  I was worried about dropping her in my exhaustion!  Enough of that.

7 months: Visited the States for my brother’s wedding, traveling alone with the Bean.  More jet-lag.  Not the time to try anything new with sleep.

8 months: She was still swaddled.  With great effort, and several nights where we thought she would never fall asleep, we weaned her off the swaddle.  Naps started going even more hay-wire, and bedtime started varying widely.  I would nurse her with her white noise and lovey in a dark room, and she would pop up like a jack-in-the-box to practice her new-found motor skills.

9 months: Naps all over the place.  Sometimes one, sometimes two—at all hours of the day.  I gave up trying to do a bedtime routine because I never knew when she was actually going to fall asleep.  Finally sleeping a little better at night once she went down (up 3-4 times to cuddle and briefly nurse, then back to sleep… with co-sleeping this was not too difficult).

9.5 months: Waking up all night again.  The Bean got an ear infection along with teething.  As new developmental milestones loomed, she started implementing an exercise work-out routine in the bed from around 2-5 a.m. with my body and head as an exercise mat.  She was (and is) going through a big separation anxiety stage and wants mom all the time, day and night.  She still seemed hungry a few times per night but also nursed frequently for comfort.  I have noticed she is able to self-soothe sometimes upon waking, if tired enough.  One night, I attempted a night weaning session where I held her in my arms for half an hour…an hour… an hour and a half…while she cried in my arms and I finally gave up and nursed her back down.  

However, I have a confession to make.  Despite all of this, I kind of love our co-sleeping, attachment-parenting style.  I think it suits her high-needs temperament, and it suits us.  Sleeping next to the Bean for so many months, and nursing her on demand, I feel that I know her really well by now.  I know what all of her wiggles and sighs mean, when she is likely to re-settle and when she is going to cry out for me.  I know when she is really hungry and when she just wants to be close.  I love the little sigh of relief that she gives when I am nearby and she knows she is about to get milk.  I hate the desperate cry she gives when it is withheld.  I know that she longs for mommy in this stage of her life.  I know that she is an active, inquisitive little one who has a hard time settling and organizing herself to sleep without a lot of help.  I know that she has a history of needing milk frequently, and that she and I have a long-standing habit of going to breastfeeding first to solve all problems.  I know that there have been a lot of transitions in her first year of life, and that we provide the consistency that keeps her feeling safe.  I love smelling her nearby and hearing her breathing, monitoring her from inches away in the bed.  When I put her in the pack-n-play, I lean over constantly to check on her because I am so used to having her near.  One of my favorite experiences of the day is to hold her close, as her sucking slows and her breathing becomes deep in the entry to sleep.

As an added bonus, nursing so frequently will probably keep me from getting pregnant again anytime soon.  And that, considering our current situation, is a very welcome relief.

I have learned a whole lot in the last ten months about sacrificial love.  I hope I’ve also instilled trust in my daughter that I will always be there for her when she needs me, to the best of my ability, her whole life long.  As she grows into the ability to separate a little more from me, I trust that she will do so with security because of the precious foundation we’ve built this first year.  As we eventually transition her away from nursing and co-sleeping, I feel that I will know her well enough to know when she is truly ready.  I can already see her beginning to blossom into a little girl of warmth and vitality, and I know that each cuddle has not been in vain.

Despite my tiredness, I know that in the long scheme of things, this stage of life is short-lived.  So, our coping strategy for now is for my husband to take the Bean for an hour or so every morning while I get some extra sleep.  If I am lucky enough to get her to take an afternoon nap, the Bean and I sleep together when I get home from language class.  I try to go to bed early at night.  In a couple months, after she turns a year old and her diet expands even more, I am planning to re-try night weaning.   

Until then, cleaning the house may just have to wait.

Some resources I have found helpful on baby sleep and night nursing:

Books:

“The Baby Book” and “The Baby Sleep Book” by Dr. Sears

“The No-Cry Sleep Solution” by Elizabeth Pantley

Information on night nursing and its relation to breastfeeding:

http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/feeding-infants-toddlers/10-tips-night-feedings

http://kellymom.com/parenting/nighttime/weaning-night/

Benefits to co-sleeping:

http://www.attachmentparenting.org/support/articles/artbenefitscosleep.php

http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/sleep-problems/scientific-benefits-co-sleeping

http://www.phdinparenting.com/2009/01/09/cosleeping-benefits/#.UGquMIGqgRE

http://naturalparentsnetwork.com/five-benefits-cosleeping/

http://img2.timg.co.il/forums/1_147673444.pdf

The case against Cry-It-Out (CIO) sleep training methods

http://www.ahaparenting.com/ages-stages/newborns/case-against-ferber-sleep