And on the Sixth Night He Rested

We’ve had a monster in our house, we’ve had little troubles from time to time but this week we’ve had a monster. Not a little bite at your ankles, chihauha kind of monster but a big scary, Where the Wild Things Are kind of monster. It came in the form of sleep deprivation. It cried, it fussed, it wouldn’t eat, it wouldn’t sleep. It made my cry, it made me sob, it made my husband come home from work early 3 times in a week. This monster made him lose it in the middle of the night and it brought us both to our sleep deprived knees. After a week of fighting this monster one nap at a time we finally got our baby back.

I thought it all started on our trip north, but now I know it began before that. I knew sleep was important for a baby, but now I respect what I will call THE SLEEP from now on. It deserves all capital letters because when it is disrupted, it rules your life. When it is good, your life as a parent is happy, content and you love your sweet little baby. When people congratulate you on your new baby, you smile and say “thank you” instead of thinking “if you only knew.” You are proud to be a parent when sleep is good. When its not, the monster comes and this is my story of chasing him away.

In order to really respect THE SLEEP I had to understand THE SLEEP. And thankfully, because I went a little bit crazy a couple of weeks ago (see previous post) I had done enough reading to have a basic understanding that told me I needed to understand more. I knew that good sleep during the day equals good sleep at night and good sleep at night makes better naps. I knew bad naps equal bad night sleep and bad night sleep makes bad naps. So when we came home from visiting my parents and Carson woke four times in one night, I suspected we had a problem, but thought, still, maybe it’s a fluke. When Carson fell asleep at 7:30 am instead of 9am for a nap, I thought hmm…that’s strange. When he woke a half hour later, I still attributed this to a one time occurrence. When he needed to go down again at 9am it took me 30 minutes to rock him to sleep. He thrashed around like my highschool boyfriend in the mosh pit of a Nirvana concert, until finally, he closed his eyes. I breathed a sigh of relief, grabbed the baby monitor and tip toed out of the room. Fifteen minutes later, he’s crying, so I sigh, put on my good attitude, rinse and repeat, this time it takes 25 minutes and then 30 minutes later he wakes again. I rock and rock and rock and then give up. Then I start over when he shows signs of tired again. Anyway, you get the picture. The Monster was here and I put it to bed for naps 12 times in one day, and then I knew, we were in trouble. Big trouble.

Out came the books again and I began to read, and read and read. Andy read and read and then we compared facts. We decided that Carson had sleep deprivation and we came up with a battle plan. We threw out all we had been doing, every routine went out the window and we focused on one thing. Sleep. We didn’t care when, we didn’t care where, or how or for how long. Getting Carson to sleep uninterrupted for at least one hour at a time was our goal. Anything less, according to the books does not help repay the sleep debt. Two hours is prime but one hour of solid sleep was our first goal. So after the second night of waking up way too much, we started our sleep campaign. Day 1 – put down for another nap that didn’t take. So I took the little babe and I put him in my front baby wearin’ baby carrier and I walked. I walked until he fell asleep and then I walked for 1 hour. Not an easy feat with 17 lbs attached to your chest, but nap/battle number one – down.

The naps slowly got easier after that. One by one, naps got longer and more frequent and I remained glued to the video baby monitor watching every stirring with nerves like a french soldier. Seriously, I was like a wide eyed hampster in its cage just staring pleadingly to get out.\, except my freedom was the baby in the 2 inch square of the monitor. By the end of day 2 we’d had a few short naps and one solid 2 and a half hour nap. By Friday, we were in business. We had a total of 5 ½ hours in the nap bank when bed time came and down Carson went, peacefully to sleep. A far cry from the thrashing in my arms he was doing before. It’s a tiny miracle when things like that happen. So we went to bed at 8pm at the same time as he did so we didn’t miss a moment’s sleep. At 3am, we were awaked by a hungry baby. Count them folks – 7 hours of sleep IN A ROW. SEVEN. He ate for exactly 12 minutes and was right back to sleep for another 3 hours which put him awake at 6:15 and hour later than usual. This repeated again on night two. Night 3 is looking promising as we’re already on good nap number two for the day. Hallelujah, we have gotten somewhere. We may not have won the war yet, but its turning in our favor.

I know a lot more than I did before about sleep and we didn’t have to get to the Cry it Out Stage, which we were considering. I know that THE SLEEP is important. It must be respected, if not revered, cherished, have its own shrine, seances and perhaps worthy of facing west and praying 3 times a day. Sorry, nice old neighbor lady, you may not look in on my sleeping baby just once, sorry Great Aunt Mildred, I will not allow you to keep my baby up just a few minutes longer so you can get him to smile. It’s his naptime. Period. Unless you want to deal with him the rest of the day THE SLEEP is more important.

Now I know when my baby is hard to putdown, fussy during the day, hard to feed, won’t accept a bottle or doesn’t smile upon waking, a problem is starting. Now I know to recognize the sleepy signs before its too late. Now I know that babies get tired 1-2 hours after they wake up and must be put down in that window. I now know that when he becomes “upcited”, a combinated of upset and excited, he’s almost past the line of being able to put down and is reaching his second wind, a very bad thing. Now I know to watch for the far off stare, the yawn, the red eyes and the occassional eye rub. Now I know not to answer one more email or answer the phone when I see this. Now I know to pick him up and go immediately to the crib. Now my life is easier. My life is better. Until the next problem.