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Who knew that sleep deprivation when you are 10 years older can be
more than 10 times harder? Our baby, now 10 months old, has been putting
us through the wringer when it comes to sleeping through the night (or
not, as the case may be).
How do I know it’s harder this time? I’ll just let a
few of my recent “function in a fog” escapades speak for themselves:
leaving the phone in the refrigerator and then wondering where it was for
an undetermined amount of time…forgetting to get things at the grocery
store that were clearly written down on the list…driving to the bank on
Martin Luther King Day, finding it closed, and then driving to the
library, instantly forgetting that it was a holiday.
Of course, we expected to have our night hours
disrupted with a newborn, but we have recently had several bouts of
teething and congestion which has made sleeping a very uncomfortable and
difficult prospect for our little one. We, in turn, find ourselves
unexpectedly awake at 3 a.m., with a sniffling, snuffling, snoring baby
propped up on our chest.
I have to be honest and say that I have never handled
night time wakings very well. When our oldest was breaking us in as
parents with her endless crying jags in the middle of the night, I would
be beside myself with exhaustion, frustration and feelings of
helplessness.
Thank goodness for my husband, who despite having to
go to work in the morning, would relieve me and pace around our tiny
apartment with our first-born.
Then we moved in with my mother-in-law for a few
months when our oldest was just shy of a year old. My husband and I had to
share a room with her, making it very difficult to ignore her when she
stood up in her crib and stared at us across the room, crying incessantly.
In order to get even a little bit of sleep, we often brought her into bed
with us.
Flash forward to buying our first house and moving
her into her very own room. Lots of crying and sleepless nights ensued
until we desperately tried to let her “cry it out”, entering her room only
to shush her, reassure her that we were there, pat her back and leave the
room. Repeat all night long.
After she stubbornly decided to stand up and
intermittently doze off with her head on the top edge of the crib and fell
asleep in her oatmeal the next morning from pure exhaustion, we decided
that some kids just didn’t respond to crying it out and ours was one of
them.
Then came our middle daughter who was a much better
sleeper, but still tested my patience as a newborn who had her days and
nights very confused in her early months. At about nine months old, we
tried letting her cry it out as well, with no intention of letting it go
all night long if it seemed like she was not responding.
From what I remember (and my memory may not be
perfect), it took a few nights of an hour or two at most of crying,
reassuring and repeating the cycle, before she was sleeping through the
night on her own.
Now our third baby, after several rounds of a cold
virus, has gotten into the habit of waking up as soon as we put her down
in her crib. And forget about putting her down awake, unless we want to
listen to her get hysterical.
While I know I don’t want to try making her cry it
out while she is currently sick, I’m actually not sure I want to do it at
all once she is feeling better. It didn’t work at all with our oldest and
seemed to work okay with our middle daughter. But I felt the same with
each one – on edge while listening to them cry, with a nagging feeling
that it just wasn’t right to let them get upset when I knew exactly what
would make them happy – picking them up. Almost 11 and eight years of
perspective later, I’m just not sure I should ignore my instincts.
While I am older, I am far from feeling wiser when it
comes to this issue. I’ll just have take it night by night and resign
myself to more sleepless nights and foggy days. At least I know to look in
refrigerator the next time I can’t find something.
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