Becoming Mother

A book and a blog for first-time mothers

Tag: sleep

December 21, 2023

The Nights, Lately

December 14, 2023

I am exhausted.

I grind the coffee and drop a filter into the basket of the coffee pot. Fill the water. Press Brew.

Up since 1:30 a.m. this time.

Because it’s another night of the youngest, six years old, waking us up, insistent that she see her dad, she can’t sleep, she had a nightmare, she’s hungry, no, actually she’s mad and she’s not going to stop waking us up until she sees her dad, she’s screaming, and now everyone’s awake, and then I’m sitting with her and telling her she’ll see him in the morning and she’s a big girl and she needs to learn how to move from The Red Zone into The Green Zone without sleeping with her parents or holding hands or snuggling until she’s asleep.

I apologize to the other kids and assure them everything is fine. It’s fine. Get some sleep. I don’t know if she’s going to scream again. Hopefully not. I’m sorry. I love you.

I go back to bed. And I go back to bed. And I go back to bed.

But I don’t sleep. I just lie there, waiting for the next knock, the next scream, the next wail, the next kicking of the door.

Then it’s 2:30 and 3:00. And 3:45.

Each time, she wants to see her mom. She cries for her mom. She tells me her mom lets her sleep in her bed. She doesn’t like that I’m being a bully and I’m so mean. I let her rage at me. I’m equally pissed and out of resources, but I let her attack. I tell her that her dad is asleep–even though he’s clutching his pillow in the other room, trying to stay out of it. Once, when I come into the room, she is hiding under a blanket.

Kids.

My alarm chirps at 5:00 and it’s time. It takes effort to sit up. My limbs are heavy and minimally responsive. You could push me over with a nudge.

I trudge to the hallway.

The light is on in her room. I creep toward her door, cringing the whole way. Just the sound of the fan. No stirring. I peek inside. She’s lying face up, passed out, glasses still on her face. I could turn the light off, but it feels like a risk. I close the door.

These nights have been up and down. They were rough, then really rough, then better, and now they are awful. I don’t want the exhaustion to creep into my interactions with her during the day–but I’m sure they do at times. My stream of consciousness is full of I can’t even today. My husband talks to her, gives her the hug she’s been chasing all night long, and she is remorseful. She apologizes. She is clear-headed enough to say she understands and she’s a big girl and she can do this.

But all the apologies don’t erase the utter exhaustion as I face a full work day.

My frustration builds and builds and I don’t share it in words. It comes out in my movements, my facial expression, and my silence. I hate that I’m so full of frustration and annoyance. I know she’s trying her best.

But there’s an impatient voice in my head that undercuts this truth. It screams, Her best isn’t good enough.

I talk about this with my therapist.

What do I do to not be annoyed with her? I ask. I’m not lashing out at her or blaming her or otherwise taking out my frustration on her. But I don’t like my frustration to begin with.

I would be annoyed if I were constantly being woken up at night, my therapist says. Do you think you might be being too hard on yourself? he asks.

The thought hadn’t occurred to me yet.

I’m allowed to be annoyed and frustrated.

It sounds like you’re coping with it in a healthy way, he says.

Well, shit.

Maybe I just don’t like coping.

I don’t want to be crawling through the day because this little person is struggling with growing. I let my own kids cry it out and their sleep issues are minimal. I didn’t create the circumstances that led to this child being unable to soothe herself in the middle of the night.

And yet, here I am.

On the Front Lines of the War with the Insomniac First Grader.

Shields up. Phasers set to stun.

I asked to be sent to these Front Lines because progress on this war has been slow. And somehow, we keep losing ground. The fight has become more fierce lately.

This is hard. Very hard.

But I can do hard. I can do hard all day long.

But it still leaves me depleted by 2:00 p.m. Even with coffee.

And then I’m crawling forward, ready for bed by the time we’re sitting down for dinner.

And then it’s time for the rapid-fire after-dinner tasks of eating, cleaning up, checking homework, baths, and bedtime–and all the arguments and resistance that we meet to accomplish these tasks.

My husband talks to the youngest while saying good night. She promises, no, she will not wake us up. She promises. She knows what to do. She’s going to hug her stuffed kitty. She’s going to look at the clock until she’s tired. She won’t wake us up. But this is Rational Her speaking. It’s not Emotional Her speaking. It’s not the Middle-of-the-Night-and-I-had-a-Nightmare Her.

I try not to think about it as I’m lying there drifting off.

There is no knock all night. Instead, my husband and I dream all night long that we are about to be woken up, a vigilance that we can’t seem to turn off now. It’s its own kind of exhausting.

And then it’s morning again and we’re still tired. But we shower her with praise.

Good job on staying in your bed! We’re so proud of you! What did you do when you woke up? Oh… You didn’t wake up? At all? Well, great job sleeping then.

The day rolls on and we feel hopeful. We can do this. We got this. One night down. We are tired, but not exhausted. We feel every year of our 42 years. (And isn’t 42 the answer to everything?)

We settle in again for bed. The kids don’t argue today. They’re all tired. We remind the youngest that we are proud of her for staying in bed. We also remind her that she still needs to stay in bed if she wakes up. And she’s not going to wake us up. And if she does, it will be me, not her dad walking her to bed and I will not stay to talk, and our door will be locked so she can’t sneak in and try to wake only her dad up, and we’re so proud of her.

We are lying in bed, just me and my husband. I drop a heavy hand onto his, my sign of affection for tonight. He smiles. I’m too tired for anything else tonight. He rubs my head, touches my face.

We talk as I close my eyes. She’s not going to wake us up. She knows. And if she does wake us up, she has to be so desperate. She’s really struggling. Can I be compassionate? Yes, I can do that. But compassion right now means that we want her to get herself to sleep on her own. No giving in on this. Please don’t undo all the work I’ve done. Right? We are agreed. It will be hard, but we will do this thing. Being patient and kind pays off, doesn’t it? It just takes dedication.

This is what we think as we drift off again.

And then there’s the knock.

2:12 a.m.

I feel all compassion drain out of me and the anger rises up.

I feel it. I feel it.

I remember what I have learned this year: Anger is your body’s response to your boundaries being crossed.

I can feel angry. And I can still do the right thing.

I get up. Open the door.

And walk her back to bed.

***

December 21, 2023

She woke up last night. And we didn’t know until this morning. Because she stayed in her bed.

For today, it’s a win.

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February 15, 2019

Is Anyone Having Fun on Valentine’s Day? (and What I’ve Been Doing Lately)

On February 15th, NPR’s Morning Edition ran a segment on “Singles Awareness Day,” focusing on how single people shouldn’t feel so alone because everyone else, apparently, had such an amazing Valentine’s Day.

Psshhh…

Here’s how Valentine’s Day went down in this house, where two kids and a marriage of 13 years reside.

Valentine’s Day Prelude

Wednesday, February 13th: Spent the day at home with the toddler because of a diarrhea bug, which was mercifully mostly over by Wednesday. Lost time for grading and planning.

The Big V-Day

  • 4:15 a.m. – 5:10 a.m.: Glorious morning run under the stars

(Calm down: This is the extent of the day’s romance.)

  • 5:12 a.m: Voicemail from public schools. Daughter’s kindergarten class is cancelled because of a water boil advisory due to a major pipe breakage. No problem. She’ll just spend the day at daycare, right?
  • 5:30 a.m.: Bathe the toddler whose poop has turned into sludge and has mercifully remained contained in his footed pajamas.
  • 7:00 a.m.: Daycare decides to also close because of the water advisory. Reverses course 15 minutes later. Children finally dropped off and settled by 7:40 a.m. Daughter forgets all classmates’ valentines in the car.
  • 8:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.: Teaching all morning, lunch for five minutes, grading/planning, public student poster presentations
  • 3:30-4:30: Drive home, make dinner for the kids
  • 4:30-4:45: Eat a leisurely 15-minute dinner alone before getting the kids (salad, hard-boiled egg, peanut butter pretzels)
  • 4:45-5:30: Retrieve children from daycare
  • 5:30-6:30: Feed children/ wash dishes/ sort through bags of valentines, crafts, and candy/ do laundry/ give baths/ dress kids for bed
  • 6:30: Husband arrives home
  • 6:32: Husband says, “Go, you’ve done enough. I’ve got the kids.”
  • 6:35: Daughter says to me, “My panties have poop in them. Can you help me?”
  • 7:00: Go to bed alone.

The Day’s Redemption: I achieved not one, not two, but THREE full sleep cycles.

High. Five.

So, let’s dispel all those myths that married people / people in relationships are having amazing Valentine’s Days.

Because at the end of the day, what married couples of so many years with young kids really want is SLEEP.

#truth

***

Oh friends…

This is going to be quite the year.

That has been the feeling for at least the past 12 months, since the youngest child started becoming mobile. In the back of my mind (as I’m transferring clothes from the washer to the dryer or moving dry dishes to the cabinets or dirty dishes to the dishwasher), I’ve had this nagging feeling that…

Perhaps, it’s all over.

“It” being my ability to reclaim any empty moment for myself.

If, by some miracle, an empty moment finds me during the day, and I choose to use it for myself, I’m overwhelmed with the feeling of Oh my God, you should be doing something else right now! You are so far behind!

But then, the thought: Behind who? Behind what?

Who am I comparing myself to?

My pre-child self? Because she’s been dead for quite a while. And the hope of her resurrection is pretty much gone.

But then there’s the realization that, There is no end to this.

At least not for the foreseeable future.

This is my life now.

Moving from task to task to task to task until the day is done.

My life has become an endless treadmill of tasks that begin at 4:00 a.m. and pull me along, chug, chug, chug, until I throw in the towel at 6:45 p.m.

***

I don’t mind being busy. Sometimes, I even revel in being busy. Instead, what pulls me down is when I feel like I’m not growing or changing for the better. If I’m not pushing myself to learn more or grow, boredom soon sinks in. And that makes it harder to find joy and purpose in what I do.

So with that in mind, here are a few things that I’m trying out this year, as a way to grow and change.

Relearning algebra, geometry, and trigonometry via Khan Academy

The rationale here is…

I’m afraid of math. And I’m tired of being afraid of math.

So I wondered, What it would be like to learn math without being afraid of failing? What if I could go at my own pace and see how far my limits take me?

It’s also great preparation for taking the GRE (I may or may not be thinking about a Ph.D. program in the future).

algebra.JPG

Learning how to write computer code

Again, this is something that I’ve been afraid of. Maybe because it’s mostly a male-dominated field? But it seems like learning how to code is becoming not only useful, but necessary as computing power doubles, triples, quintuples.

Reading the Wheel of Time series

This is unabashed escapism. I’m okay with that.

Some mothers have daytime TV.

Some have romance novels (I never could get into those. Too formulaic. Too many one-dimensional characters.)

I’ve got fantasy fiction.

Eye of the World.jpg

So, Fellow Parents, gather your provisions and your fortitude, and breathe deeply.

It’s going to be a Long. Long. Journey.

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January 3, 2018

I Wore a FitBit for the First Year Postpartum: Here’s How Much Sleep I Lost

Over the past year, my blog post about my changing heart rate throughout pregnancy and the resulting increase in total calories burned per day has become the most heavily trafficked blog post on this site.

So I figured I’d tackle postpartum sleep loss next.

Because, guys, postpartum sleep deprivation is no joke. (Except when it is.)

So, here we go.

Last Days of Pregnancy, Labor, and Immediate Postpartum Period

I gave birth on February 2nd. You can see that in my last days of the pregnancy, I was sleeping around 6 or 7 hours at night (not pictured: the six or seven times that I had to get up each night to pee). I was also taking a nap in the afternoon since my daughter was in daycare and I was wasting my maternity leave by being way beyond my due date. (That wasn’t really part of the plan… But hey.)

Note: Dates are in descending order. That’s the only way FitBit will let me view the data.

Pregnancy Labor Immediate Postpartum Sleep

The last time that I had some solid sleep before giving birth was Wednesday, February 1st. That night, I finally went into labor around midnight (at 41 weeks, 4 days).

It looks like the next time that I slept was on the day that I gave birth.

Do not be fooled. I was completely incapacitated after giving birth and losing 1200 ccs of blood. The same is true of February 3rd. I was lying in a hospital bed, trying to recover, but not really sleeping.

The next time that I actually fell into a light sleep (definitely not REM or a deep sleep) was February 4th.

That’s a full 72 hours without sleep.

Believe it or not, this was an improvement from my first birth, when I went about 96 hours without falling into at least a light sleep. (Wednesday, August 14th, 6:00 a.m. to the night of Saturday, August 17th)

Yeah.

First Week Postpartum

Even with having the help of my husband and mother, on most days during that first week postpartum, I was getting about 5 hours of sleep in a 24-hour period, but only in frustrating 1-hour increments.

Week 2 Sleep

Why?

There were plenty of times during the day when I could have let my mother do the feedings and caught up on sleep.

But honestly, during that first week, I just couldn’t fully power down. I can’t pinpoint one reason. Was it my fluctuating hormones? Was it racing thoughts? Was the stress of recovering and adjusting to life with a second child?

Sure. It was all of these things. It was probably also the additional stress of feeling like, Oh my God, why aren’t you sleeping! Everyone has everything taken care of! Use your time wisely!

Not the most restful thoughts you can have.

So I was exhausted. I hurt everywhere. The afterbirth cramps were intense. I was still bleeding a lot. Breastfeeding was (once again) complete hell and I was dealing with the emotions of stopping completely. The baby was eating every 2 hours and we were figuring out that, just like his sister, he was allergic to dairy. The house was in disorder. The other child was feeling left out. My husband was trying to keep the ship running.

And every night, from midnight to 6:00 a.m., it was just me and the baby. Although it was emotional and beautiful in its own right, it was also incredibly exhausting.

This is when intense sleep deprivation began to take hold. Not only was I unable to sleep because the baby was eating all the time, but my body began to realize that it had lost its placenta (no more all-is-right-and-good-in-the-world levels of progesterone for me anymore).

This week, by far, was the absolute worst for me. 

Some things you cannot do when you’re getting this little sleep:

  • Have a coherent conversation
  • Drive
  • Make decisions
  • Basically, anything beyond mother-infant survival is way too challenging

At the end of this week, my mom (who had mercifully been staying with us after the delivery) returned home. My husband and I looked at each other like, What now? How are we going to get some sleep and not lose our minds?

We made a compromise.

Second Week Postpartum

We decided that my husband would take the evening feedings that happened before midnight. I would get the feedings after midnight. I would try my damnedest to get some sleep before my first night feeding. In addition, on the weekends, my husband would take all of the night feedings so I could get some restorative sleep.

And because he was extra awesome, he allowed me to tag him in when I told him that I was seriously losing my mind. Because, quite honestly, sleeping like this is simply unsustainable for weeks on end.

Week 3 Sleep

Things you still should not do when you’re sleeping like this:

  • Drive
  • Make important decisions
  • Make plans (for anything)
  • Read (you won’t remember what you read)
  • Shop (you’ll forget what you bought)

Third Week Postpartum

By some miracle, our baby started to shift towards only two night feedings by this point, leaving me responsible for just one feeding since my husband took the other one. This is not a common occurrence, so if it happens for you, just express your undying gratitude to the Universe. Seriously.

By this point, I had mostly recovered from the pain of childbirth and postpartum blood loss. I had more energy and was able to independently take care of household responsibilities like dishes, cooking, laundry, and vacuuming.

This dramatically improved my mood. I mean, obviously, right?

If you’re getting this much sleep, driving might be possible, but honestly, it’s really best to only drive if you’re getting at least six hours of sleep every night.

Week 4 Sleep

Fourth Week Postpartum

After about one month after birth, we started to find our rhythm with taking care of the house, the new baby, and the preschooler. We were still doing night feedings, but they were becoming more manageable.

I need to emphasize at this point that my increase in sleep by four weeks postpartum is a direct reflection of my husband’s willingness and ability to step into his role as an equal caretaker. Without his help, I would still be getting minimal sleep by this point.

So hats off to you, Doug. You kept me from losing my mind.

Week 5 Sleep

So when did the baby sleep through the night?

Okay, first, if you’re trying to make friends with other new parents, don’t ask this question.

But I’m game for it. So…

“Sleeping through the night” was a process for us. Our baby slept ten hours in a row for the first time when he was two months old.

BUT…

… it was just a one-night reprise from the continuing pattern of night feedings that stretched on well past four months. At five months, he started to want to put himself to sleep. No more rocking or holding him while he got drowsy. Odd, but I acquiesced.

By six months, his eating schedule got all screwy and he started to develop a middle of the night feeding again. And we had had enough of it. He was a huge baby. There was clearly no need for him to be eating in the middle of the night. He was healthy. He wasn’t teething. Coupled with the crushing reality that things were not going to resolve by themselves, we made the decision:

It was time to Cry It Out.

It took three nights, but it was the best decision we made. Hands down. He dropped the night feeding and learned to tank up in his first and last feedings of the day. No one was worse the wear.

What did your average sleep look like throughout the year?

Here is what my average number of hours of sleep looked like from February 2017 to December 2017 looked like in summary, with some annotations to help make sense of what you’re seeing.

Sleep in 2017

Sleep in 2017

Keep in mind a few things:

1.) I had lots of help.

2.) I had a pretty long maternity leave (at least compared to most women in the U.S.)

3.) I did not breastfeed.

4.) I committed myself to working out in the morning because it improved my mental and emotional state. This meant that I would get up at 4:30 a.m. on most mornings to exercise before the kids woke up and before I had to get ready for work. Yeah, it was hard, but it made me feel so much better. So I made adjustments to help commit to this goal, like going to bed way early (like 8 p.m.)

5.) There were plenty of bouts of illness, teething, and unexplained fussy nights that were peppered throughout the year.

6.) Our baby did not have acid reflux or prolonged colicky periods or other conditions that made him unable to sleep for long periods of time. With the exception of the dairy allergy, he has been very healthy.

***

Postpartum sleep deprivation is real and it’s tough.

No way around it.

If you’re reading this while you’re pregnant with your first child, don’t despair. There are some things that you can do to prepare yourself for the realities that await you soon.

1.) Establish clear expectations about care-taking responsibilities with your partner.

Talk openly. Talk honestly. Agree that no one really wants to lose this much sleep, but damn it, you’re in this thing together. Tag each other in when you’re down for the count.

2.) Do not be too proud to ask for help.

You cannot do this alone. You will need help. And lots of it. You are not Superwoman and there is no glory in trying to be. Few, if any, will know of your struggles to simply get through the day. Every woman who has been through this understands the pain and exhaustion that you are experiencing. They are, quite often, thrilled to help.

3.) When it gets tough, remember that you’re not doing it wrong.

You’re not doing it wrong. It’s just plain hard. No one has an easy time of this, and any woman who says it was not that bad is airbrushing reality.

4.) Ask those who are close to you to let you know when they think you’re not okay.

Losing sleep can bring you to the edge of psychosis. If you go days and days without sleep, you will start to lose your grip on reality. And from your perspective, you may not realize that you’re not fine anymore. If you cannot achieve restorative sleep even when you are provided the opportunity, it is probably time to seek help from your medical provider.

5.) Buy ear plugs and a sleep mask. You’ll need them for daytime sleeping.

Sleep_mask

6.) Coffee.

I mean… obviously.

coffee-cup-1797283_960_720

Good luck on your postpartum journey, Friends.

It’s a crazy way to live and in the hard moments when your head is warm and fuzzy and everyone around you is so blissfully unaware of how LUCKY they are to have slept more than four hours last night… it feels like it will go on forever and you will forever be stuck in the vicious cycle of Never Enough Sleep.

But you won’t.

Press on.

Please let me know how it’s going for you in the comments below.

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July 11, 2017

The Tough Nights (a.k.a. Don’t Ask If the Baby is Sleeping Through the Night)

Listen to this post here: 

Or read for yourself here: 

You know what I’m talking about. We’ve all got our stories.

Here’s one from me.

It was the first day post-maternity leave that I had to be in the office at an 8:30 a.m. meeting.

Before this, my work tasks had been very flexible. I did a lot of stuff at home and only had to come into the office a few times. (And I totally yoga-pantsed it.)

But on Friday, May 12th, I had to be in the office. At 8:30 a.m.

So of course the night before this was also the first night that the baby was sick.

It was the first night that Doug was completely spent and the baby needed me to hold him all night long to sleep.

Beginning at 1:00 a.m.

crying baby

Photo credit: Brandon Baunach, http://www.flickr.com

What if I told you that my first thought when I heard him crying in the night wasn’t, You poor thing, are you okay?

What if I told you it wasn’t my second thought? Or even my tenth thought?

It was probably more like my thirtieth thought.

After, Oh my God, what is your problem? 

After, Look, we’re not doing this all night. We’re just not. I’m serious.

After, What the f**!?! Go to sleep!

After, I swear to God, if you wake up one more time after I put you down, I’m going to make you scream it out.

After, Why tonight? Really? You could have done this any other night. But now? Really.

After, I’m serious. I’m so f***ing serious.

And on and on.

After eight times of rocking him to sleep and trying to transfer him to the crib over the course of an hour, I relented. I let go of the plan that I was going to get up at 5:00 a.m. to exercise. I let go of the plan that I would even get one hour of sleep before work started.

I just let it all go and embraced the exhaustion.

If I was going to be tired, I didn’t also have to be stressed and resentful the whole day about being tired.

So when I handed the baby over to my husband at 5:45 that morning, I didn’t yell or swear. I just told him what the night had been like and asked him to stay home with the baby while I took the three-year-old to daycare.

Grocery shopping? Okay. I’ll do it. And I’ll pick her up from daycare. I said.

Give.

And would you stay home with the baby while I go to work?  I asked.

Take.

I showered. I made my coffee and drank it while I put on enough make-up to cover up the night. Then I dressed my daughter while she was still waking up and still like a wet noodle. Then, I coaxed her into eating her vitamins and drinking her milk. I put her lunch and my lunch together and made formula for the baby.

I loaded F’s lunch bag, her backpack, my work bag, my lunch bag (but not H’s bottle bag or H’s diaper bag since he was staying home). (If you’re keeping track, it’s usually six bags in and out of the car. Seven on Mondays and Fridays.)

I drove fifteen minutes south to her daycare.

Then I drove twenty-five minutes north to work.

I got off the Interstate with another car.

We both followed the same route until it was clear we were both going to the same university. We parked next to each other. I looked over and saw that the driver was a guy, probably my age. He sprang out of his car holding only a set of keys.

Just. A. Set. Of. Keys.

The nerve.

I saw very plainly in that split second what it takes for me to get to work now versus what it took for me to get to work before I had children.

Now, the morning is a whole orchestrated production. A delicate ballet of exercise, showers, wake-up calls, second wake-up calls, third wake-up calls, Oh-my-God-get-out-of-bed-already! wake-up calls, vitamins, lunch bags, baby bottles, Get-your-shoes-on, Go-potty, Get-your-shoes-on, diapers, Are-your-shoes-on, teeth/hair-brushing, For-the-love-of-God-get-your-shoes-on!, breakfasts, carseats, strollers, kisses, conversations with teachers, punctuated with a deep, satisfying sigh that yes, finally *I* can go to work now.

***

I wasn’t at peak performance on Friday, May 12th, but I pulled through. I recovered.

Thankfully, most nights have not been like that lately. Most nights, he sleeps through the night. Sometimes, he has a night feeding. And then he goes back to sleep.

And by the way, don’t ask if someone’s baby is sleeping through the night.

Unless you know them pretty well.

It’s just not good manners. I mean, really, it’s not a great topic for small talk. The only way that question is small talk is if the answer is clearly “yes.” And the likelihood of that is… meh…

A more likely situation is that you send the parent into a fury of jealousy as they imagine you sleeping on a billowy, undisturbed cloud of silence for eight, God, maybe even twelve! extravagant hours. Only to wake up to the luxury of you strolling to your bathroom and taking a hot, steamy, uninterrupted shower, and then magically emerging from the bathroom, just moments later, completely dressed to the nines and made completely over, from your hair down to your nails. And, lo, breakfast is already made. And it’s cinnamon rolls and waffles and bacon and sausage and the most delicious coffee you’ve ever had in your entire life–all 0 calories! And the only thing that you have to do is climb into your brand-new Mercedes and drive to work in completely, inexplicably empty roads and highways until you are work. Where everything is already done. And the only thing you need to do is drink more coffee and catch up on House of Cards, which you still haven’t gotten to see one blessed moment of and it’s driving you crazy (even though the reviews for Season 5 aren’t very good). But still. You binge. All. Day. Long.

Jealousy makes you crazy.

Do you really want to drive the person crazy?

***

Getting through the tough nights without completely losing your mind is an exercise in long-term thinking.

It’s easy to think, I really can’t do this again. I’m going insane. No. I’m not doing it. I refuse. He’ll just have to scream it out tonight. 

It takes some effort to reshape your thoughts into,

It’s not always going to be like this.

There will be an end to this.

You’ll live. Oh, you’ll be tired. Way tired. But you’ll live.

You’ve been through worse. Remember birth?

You’ve got this. 

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March 22, 2017

Week 7: And Now My Watch Is Ended

In Game of Thrones, the Night’s Watch is a group of monk-like men who devote themselves to defending the icy wall that separates the Realm from demonic Whitewalkers. In their oaths, they make this pledge:

Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night’s Watch, for this night and all the nights to come.

Being a mother of a newborn is a bit like being a Brother of the Night’s Watch.

Not completely. But a bit.

It’s sold to you as important, noble, and life-changing work. And it feels like this for a time, while it’s still fresh and new.

But after a time, you feel like you actually have a lot in common with the Brothers of the Night’s Watch, sent to the end of the world, isolated, doing the work that must be done, the work that safeguards and ensures that humanity goes on, but that no one else will do.

At one time, you looked forward to the night hours that other mothers had once told you were so dear and precious. They talked about those hours as if they had been part adventure, part battle, and part romance.

But then, you find yourself standing in the midst of this long-awaited dream, bleary-eyed, weary, frustrated, resentful, and just downright sad.

And in that moment, it feels like you have been duped. It feels like you have fallen for a grand prank, as if you’ve been traveling toward some oasis, only to find that once you got there, there was nothing but sand to drink and no one to share your frustration with but the stars.

I imagine that it’s a lot like how Jon Snow felt when he realized that the other men who were travelling to the Wall with him were criminals who were being sent there as punishment.

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So fueled by your euphoric and powerful love for your child, this feeling that you’ve been doing incredibly important, albeit invisible work, transforms into something quite different.

Loneliness. Singularity. A feeling of forgottenness.

While everyone else has moved on with their lives, there you are. Ever rocking. Ever feeding. Ever diapering and holding. Traveling in a repetitive loop of time. Frozen.

It weighs so heavy on you.

It feels like it will never end.

It feels like this will forever be the rhythm of your life.

***

When we came home with the baby just six weeks ago, I called those hours between midnight and 6:00 a.m. “The Night Watch.” They were the hours when it was only me and him. My husband and daughter were sound asleep. So was my mother, who had come to help us in those first few weeks.

And then there was me and Henry.

And six hours.

And three feedings.

For about a week, the Night Watch had three feedings, around 1:00, 3:00, and 5:00 a.m. And then it shortened to two feedings, around midnight and 3:00 a.m.

Last week, as Henry turned six weeks old, it shortened even more. We noticed that he would sleep for five and a half hours in one stretch, usually between 11:30 p.m. and 5:00 a.m.

This was exciting. Because it opened the possibility of me being able to seriously regain some sleep. My husband and I agreed to share the responsibility for the two feedings. Since I’m much better in the morning and he’s better at night, I took the early morning feeding and he took the late night feeding.

A few days passed like this.

It was sooo great.

In bed at 9:00 p.m. Up at 5:00 a.m.

Refreshed.

And I got so much stuff done.

Between 5:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m., depending on when Henry would wake up to eat, I could (usually) accomplish the following, always in a different order.

  • Exercise (low-impact kickboxing or walking)
  • Packing Felicity’s lunch
  • Feeding/changing Henry, putting him back to sleep
  • Getting Felicity dressed/ fed/ dropped off at daycare
  • Shower
  • Breakfast/Coffee
  • Wake up Doug

And then it occurred to me.

And now my watch is ended.

There will still be those awful nights of teething and illness when he can’t sleep more than a few minutes at a time. And sometimes, his sleep will be messed up and he’ll want to eat at 2:00 or 3:00 a.m.

But for the most part, it’s over.

There is no more Night Watch for me.

Just like that.

And now, I can hardly remember how long those hours were. My memory tells me that I felt so tired and heavy. I remember pulling myself out of sleep and moving through the night, bare feet on the cold tiles of the kitchen floor, digging my hands into the pockets of my robe. Pouring the formula into a bottle, microwaving it (which you should never do… right?), and then trudging back up the stairs (had I actually walked down them? I can’t even remember…).

But the sensations are gone. I cannot recreate them.

And so, those tired moments have become uncoupled from the exact cause of what made them so difficult: the actual feelings of utter exhaustion.

What was once so horrible in the moment has already become a fond memory.

One, I’m sure, I’ll recall next year with longing and misty eyes.

5 Comments
March 4, 2017

Postpartum Levels of Sleep Deprivation

*In the fashion of the “DEFense readiness CONdition“

DEFCON 5

When: Immediately post-birth – Day 5 or Day 6

Description: You’ve just labored for God knows how long, so you’re already physically exhausted. But you are riding on a hormonal high because your baby is out and in your arms. At first, you believe that you will be able to rest as soon as everyone leaves your hospital room.

Only, they don’t ever really leave. For very long, at least. So what you end up with are minuscule catnaps that amount to no real rest. You close your eyes and try to drift off, but your brain doesn’t really power down.

You pray that once you return home, you’ll be able to sleep. But then, new stressors await you at home, no matter how many people are there to help out. Your life is in flux. The baby warps the fabric of time and space and requires your concerted attention for figuring out how to move through the day in order to keep everyone alive.

And then you’re processing the birth experience, remembering everything that happened. The horrible. The beautiful. The painful. The moments you never, ever want to forget but are already slowly falling through the cracks in your memory.

Then, there are your plummeting postpartum hormones. Your constant need to mop out all the fluids pouring out of you. The postpartum hunger as your body prepares to breastfeed. The afterbirth cramps that continue to pulse in waves.

All of this adds to your mounting anxiety and despair that you will literally never power down again. Although you desperately close your eyes and tell yourself, This is it. Everyone is taking care of everything. I can sleep—You still don’t sleep.

Your mind wants to fall asleep, but your body won’t follow suit.

DEFCON 4

When: Days 7-14

Description: You sleep in one-hour increments around the clock, totaling about 5 hours. You do not reach restorative, REM sleep, but the sleep is deep enough for your brain to put a period to the last segment of time that you were awake. It’s not that you never find the opportunity to sleep. Your body just physically won’t completely let go of consciousness for whatever reason.

Your need for round-the-clock self-care continues, along with your round-the-clock eating which coincides with your baby’s feedings. Your postpartum hormones are still swinging up and down, making you unpredictably emotional.

Sometimes, you just need to cry at 2:00 a.m.

Every time you wake up from a one-hour nap, you feel that you’ve taken a few steps away from full-on psychosis. But after a few hours, when you hear yourself talking, you think, Is that me? Did I say that? Do I sound weird to other people?

You cannot make decisions and you hope no one asks you to do so. Your cognitive processing is at an all-time low. Your head feels warm and fuzzy.

Stupid things make you laugh.

You utter the words, “Oh, sweet, sweet exhaustion.”

DEFCON 3

When: Day 15 – Whenever the baby has only one night feeding.

Description: Small 1-2 hour chunks of sleep at night + 2 naps, totaling 5-6 hours.

You are doing two or three night feedings each night, but it feels like six. Up and down. Up and down. Up, up, up. And down.

But there’s a good side. This is the first time you really achieve restorative, REM-sleep. You begin to dream regularly again, although sometimes you wish you didn’t. Nightmares of losing your baby or discovering your child dead in his crib haunt you.

This is also where chronic sleep deprivation sets in. When you wake up from a good chunk of sleep, you feel restored. It’s deceptive. You feel like you can do anything. Grocery shopping! Daycare drop off! Make my own breakfast! Yes, I can do it all!

But by the sixth hour that you are awake, you are completely spent. This time, your body wants to sleep, but your mind doesn’t. That familiar warm, fuzzy feeling in your head returns and you feel your eyes start to involuntarily close. It happens at predictable intervals, too, because all the sleeping in one-hour increments has trained your body to power down with or without your permission.

1:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. is when you feel it. Like clockwork.

1:00 p.m. is not so bad because the baby usually wants to sleep.

But 7:00 p.m. opens a previously hidden door to hell.

Everyone is home now. It’s dinner time. Maybe you have to cook. (Or maybe you just assemble salads and sandwiches, like I usually do.) The daily dishes mount in the sink. The mail comes in. The baby is in the prime “witching hours” of fussiness. He cries, but won’t really eat. He’s asleep, then awake 10 minutes later. Then, asleep. Awake. Crying. Refuses the pacifier. All you want to do is slink away from everyone, miraculously unnoticed and unneeded and bed down in your dark room with the cool sheets to soothe the building heat in your head.

God forbid, one of you gets sick.

That’s when the shit really hits the fan.

DEFCON 2

When: Transitional period of one nightly feeding/waking – no nightly feedings/wakings

Description: This is arguably the most frustrating period of sleep deprivation, simply because you’ve had a taste of the good nights. At this level, you have a bit of an expectation that you will fall asleep and stay asleep for a good six or seven hours. Sure, you’re not technically as sleep deprived as you were during DEFCON 3. But after several days of solid sleep, you begin to believe that your baby has finally dropped the night wakings.

And then it happens. The old familiar 2:00 a.m. wail.

Devastation.

DEFCON 1

When: Whenever your baby has no more nightly feedings or wakings

Description: Besides occasional nights when your child is teething or sick, your child is sleeping through the night and so are you. You begin to forget the horrible sensations of being sleep deprived. Sure, you remember that you hated it, but you truly start to forget the actual sensations of constant sleep deprivation. Sometimes, you tiptoe into your child’s room to watch him sleep so peacefully.

You actually miss waking up in the middle of the night to comfort him.

And then you start thinking…

Hey, maybe we’ll have another?

Nature has a sick, sick sense of humor.

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10 Comments
March 1, 2017

Week 4: Gentle Sleep Training

Now that I’ve used the words “sleep training,” let me disappoint you.

I’m not in favor of trying to “train” your newborn to sleep.

I don’t think newborns are “trainable.”

Newborns are gonna do what newborns are gonna do.

However, the words “sleep training” are the words that everyone uses when trying to figure out how to get their babies to sleep longer.

So what exactly am I in favor of?

Training yourself to recognize and follow your newborn’s sleep patterns.

***

When our first child was about one month old, I found an amazing book that forever shaped our decisions about how we structured our days with a baby.

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I don’t rave about many baby products.

But let me RAVE about this book.

This book removed the mystery about how babies decide when to fall asleep and how their sleep patterns change as they grow throughout the first year.

It’s not a book based on a parenting style or a fancy technique.

It’s based on science. It’s based on human biology.

The Overall Takeaway: If you soothe your newborn to sleep after he/she has been awake for 90 minutes, he’ll fall asleep and stay asleep for a nap.

Dr. Polly Moore, a sleep researcher and scientist, based her advice in this book on the “basic rest and activity cycle,” which states that human bodies function on 90-minute periods of rest or activity. For example, our attention, alertness, and sleep cycles follow these patterns.

At roughly three weeks old, newborn babies start to establish 90-minute periods of wakefullness. As long as the baby is getting enough to eat and isn’t suffering from other physical ailments, you should be able to see these patterns emerge as early as three weeks.

You can’t train your newborn to stay awake for 90-minutes or to nap for long periods of time. However, you can pay attention and learn how your newborn wants to structure his sleeping patterns. By learning your child’s tired signals and making sure he gets all the naps that he needs during the daytime, you are helping him to reach the Holy Grail of baby-dom: sleeping through the night.

You can do this by taking a few days to log your child’s sleep. Like this:

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Many of these periods of wakefullness last for 90 minutes. However, some don’t. The night feedings usually only last 30 minutes to one hour. Long enough to eat, burp, have a diaper change, and fall back asleep.

What’s important to see in this list of times is that this three-week-old’s naps are already beginning to follow the body’s rhythms. (Note: Forty-five minute naps = Half of a 90-minute increment and three-hour naps = Two 90-minute increments)

Of course, sometimes naps are cut short because the baby didn’t get enough to eat and wakes up to be fed. Or sometimes, he has a huge poop and wants to be changed. But the older the baby gets and the more established his sleeping habits become, the less likely the baby will cut his naps short in order to eat or be changed.

***

Last Saturday, we realized that our baby was starting to establish these 90-minute periods of wakefullness.

I remember reading years ago when we were caring for our first child that the first few weeks of a baby’s sleeping habits are unpredictable. I learned that babies sleep a lot in the first few weeks and that they can pretty much fall asleep anywhere. And stay asleep no matter what is happening around them.

Until last Saturday, I didn’t realize that we had drifted into the zone of 90-minute periods of wakefullness.

I didn’t realize that our baby had started to become unable to block out the noise and stimulation around him.

While our friends came over for breakfast, he remained awake. And awake. And awake. Until about 11:30.

Then, he lost his shit.

Screaming. Inconsolable.

We took him out in the stroller and he gave us the thousand-mile stare. At a fork in the road, my husband turned back to go home while I continued on for a longer walk.

Big mistake.

Henry started downright wailing. He screamed so hard his face turned crimson and went completely silent as he tried to scream without taking in oxygen. He coughed and choked to bring more air into his lungs.

They were the saddest screams I’ve ever heard.

I rushed home, but it was the longest quarter mile ever.

Because we deprived him of sleep that morning, he was completely out of whack for the rest of the day. He couldn’t stay asleep. He screamed and nothing helped. By 10:00 p.m., even my husband had written him off and pronounced that there’s nothing we could do to help him.

I took our son and sat in the glider. Then, I placed him on the ottoman in front of me. I let his hands clutch my fingers while he screamed and screamed.

Five minutes passed. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes.

I tried all the usual soothing techniques as he sputtered and gasped for more air to continue his wailing.

Then I returned him to the ottoman and rocked him again. This time, his screaming slowed and his eyes rolled back in his head, the way that newborns do.

He had passed out.

***

That night, I reread Polly Moore’s book and realized that we had crossed into new sleeping territory now that Henry is a month old. Now, he’s having trouble blocking out sound and light and stimulation. Now, he needs quiet. He needs a lack of sensation to stay asleep.

We followed the 90-minute wakefullness cycles the next day.

Wow. What a difference it makes when your baby has those needed naps.

***

What I learned from this book is how to determine the best windows to put my baby to sleep. I learned how to recognize emerging sleeping patterns. I learned how to best accommodate my baby’s needs for sleep, including the importance of napping rituals throughout the day that will help a baby establish solid sleeping patterns later.

For us, this means that we don’t take our baby out during his nap times.

Which basically means, he stays at home 90% of the time until his awake periods extend to three hours (around 6-8 months). If we go out, we’ll keep him in the car seat and put on a white noise maker so his naps don’t suffer too much.

It’s a restrictive life, for sure. But he’s not going to be this young forever. I’m willing to make changes in my life for a few months.

For us, establishing good sleeping patterns early on–as we did with our daughter–rewarded us exponentially later on. Our daughter slept through the night regularly (with the exception of teething and sick days) at three and a half months. When she started daycare at five months, it only took her a week to adjust to the new environment and resume her champion napping abilities amidst other crying infants.

***

Every rule has an exception. Here are two cases when the 90-minute wakefullness rule doesn’t pan out as predictably into regular napping patterns.

Babies who are suffering from medical conditions: like acid reflux, food allergies/intolerances, etc.

Babies who are in the midst of a growth spurt: All babies go through growth spurts and they are notorious for throwing all routines into chaos. Naps suffer. Babies wake up from naps early and have trouble falling asleep. They eat too much or too little. They cry. Nay, they wail. They turn into monsters for several days. In fact, we’re going through one right now. From 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. last night, he was awake, asleep, awake, asleep, hungry, pissed off, asleep, awake, screaming. You get the point.

But when this growth spurt is over, he’ll be pleasant again. And he’ll show us his newly learned moves.

***

There’s a lot more that I can say about how babies change in their sleep needs from birth to the end of the first year, but I’ll let Polly Moore do that for you.

As I said before, there are not many baby products that I am willing to rave about to the point of spending my valuable time actually writing about them…

But this is one of the rare few.

If you’ve got a baby at home, check it out. Seriously.

9 Comments
February 13, 2017

These Holy Hours

1:00 a.m., 3:00 a.m., 5:00 a.m.

These are holy hours

when the soft rooting of newborn hunger stirs the silence

And weary, warm exhaustion is brushed aside once more

In these holy hours

new life feeds and grows, minute by minute

Neurons connect and thicken

their paths beginning to deepen

Eyes open and drink

swallowing light and one familiar face

Eyes, free of shame and guilt and secrecy

Eyes that stare and stare

Eyes that wonder

These are holy hours

but hours for which no one wants to awaken

save the mother, whose body craves the contact

In these hours

ordinary actions become superhuman feats

witnessed by no one

In these hours, maternal instinct strengthens and sharpens

and all other desires recede

and it is mothers who detect and interpret

even the smallest of signals

In these hours, love is quietly knitted together

one diaper, one feeding, one burping at a time

In these holy hours

two human hearts rest closely together

synchronize and slow

synchronize and slow

the inside, now the outside

These are holy hours

when questions of creation come forth

and the shells of sacred mysteries begin to crack

under the magnitude of these most ordinary of moments

Their rays of light shining through

Revealing new truths in the Whole Story

Beginning of beginnings

These are quiet, still hours

when the rhythm of the present slows

suspended between the past and the future

when memories and hopes and prayers

swirl and mix

creating new galaxies of possibilities.

These are holy hours

When the Divine bends down to offer mother and child

a blessing that washes over them

and pulls them underneath into an ocean of warm sleep

once more.

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5 Comments
February 10, 2017

The First Week: In Pictures (Pt. 2, How We Eat and Sleep)

Day 5

My postpartum belly continues to slowly shrink. And if you’re wondering what it looks like to wear cabbage leaves inside of your bra, look no further. A little lumpy, but not too bad. I wore the leaves for two days to relieve the pressure and pain.

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Everyone has different sleeping arrangements that work for them. I’m in favor of whatever works for the parents.

Because if the parents have lost their minds, it doesn’t matter whatever positive benefits studies show.

We are following pretty closely to what we did last time. One parent sleeps apart from the baby and gets a full night’s sleep and the other parent sleeps next to the baby in the baby’s room. During the week, Doug gets to sleep in our bedroom without the baby (since he is working full-time.) Then, I take the night watch. During the weekend, I get to sleep in our bedroom and Doug takes the night watch.

I haven’t dreaded being the night watch parent so far. In fact, I think my hormones are demanding it. On Day 4, I thought I could just knock myself out with some Zzquil and sleep for eight hours and be totally caught up on sleep.

Ha. Ha.

My mind had other ideas. It kept playing and replaying images from the birth. Over and over again. And when I wasn’t remembering the visuals, my mind would nurse on the songs on the playlist that accompanied all of the visuals from the birth that will remain with me forever.

Honestly, how could my mind do anything else after experiencing birth?

Birth is such a tremendously life-changing event. In my experience, it far surpasses other milestones like graduations or even my wedding. The only times in my life that approach this level of preoccupation were the times I fell in love. That’s it.

So what does all of this mean?

I basically didn’t fully descend into a deep sleep from birth to Day 5 (February 1st, the last day that I got a full night’s sleep, until February 6th). I “rested.” But during that rest, my senses were amplified. Everything was on high alert. I noticed everything, as if my mind were logging all of the possible noises that could come from my baby and what they meant.

Oh, that snort is okay. He’s fine. 

Now, he’s smacking his lips and eating his fingers. He’s hungry.

He’s whimpering. He needs to be held close.

Oh, he startled himself awake when his arms flinched. He needs to be swaddled more tightly.

It’s a little easier this time to understand what the sounds mean because I know a range of possibilities of why babies wake up. But obviously, this is a new baby and this is an entirely new inventory of sounds. It’s taking my mind time to acquire this new language.

From Day 5-7, I was able to establish a passable sleeping pattern for myself. At least, one that steers me off the road to psychosis. I was able to sleep in one-hour increments and still reach a deep enough level of sleep for my body to partially restore itself. During the night, I was even able to dream in one-hour increments between feedings.

Nevertheless, I’m still not close to being able to drive safely. Would you want someone like this on the road?

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So, you’re welcome.

This is markedly different from my first child, when I went on a 12-day bender with nearly no sleep at all. Not only did my hormones keep me awake, but so did all of the breastfeeding challenges that grew worse over time and never improved.

So this is what is working for us right now. Me, sleeping on the inflatable mattress in the baby’s room, close enough to calm my mind, but far enough away to still sleep somewhat soundly. Maybe it’s just me, but I actually sleep with earplugs in my ears. That’s how heightened my senses are. I can still hear him through the earplugs when something’s wrong.

Nature. Just wow.

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Best friend, “Bear,” holds the first boy among our Monday Night Dinner friends. After six girls. (Just means we’re raising a legion of strong women.)

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We bought these tiny 2-ounce bottles, thinking we would use them for a few weeks. Of course, he outgrows them in two days. Now, we’re on to 4-ounce bottles. I guess it *does* make a difference that he stayed in the womb for an extra week.

Day 6

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Nasty? Yep. After this birth, I’ve forever crossed into the realm of “badass-dom.”

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Collecting things for the baby book

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You know you have amazing friends when this is the card they get you.

I saw this card one night as I was preparing for the night watch and I had to smile. My friend, Suzy, gave me this card for my birthday last Thanksgiving (yep, same day), and it was such an encouragement. I was 32 weeks pregnant and already feeling massive. Wondering how much larger I was going to be at the end. (Thank God, I don’t have the gift of foresight.)

I think she knew I needed to hear that.

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The night watch supplies. Not pictured: Stephen Colbert videos via smartphone.

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When I see his legs crossed like this, I think, “Oh. That makes sense. Now I understand what I was feeling for the last month.”

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3:30 a.m.

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Wide awake, studying my face.

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The “old man” face

Day 7

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Just before I lie down for another 1-hour nap, I see that it’s Henry’s 1-week birthday, right down to the minute.

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For how much walking I did to get labor going, you would think that I would not miss it. Especially some of these mornings have been so cold. But, of course, I do. I haven’t really been outside since the birth (except to take H to the pediatrician).

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Can I just say, this page of the baby book is uniquely challenging. Although, when I posed this challenge to the Facebook hive mind, I got some great ideas for how to inject humor into the bleak and unforgiving reality of the time in which we are living.

My favorite? Use “Donald Trump language” to fill out the whole page.

So that is where we are so far.

And now I’m going to do something daring.

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Here I am, in full postpartum glory.

Exhausted. Imperfect, but authentic. Continuously putting faith in the idea that I have all I need, even though I feel short on everything.

There’s a cliche saying that I grew up hearing in the Southern Baptist church. God, I really hated it when people said it. But I cannot deny the truth of it in this moment.

They would say, His grace is sufficient for me.

In other words, Trust that God will give you what you need to pull through.

I’m doing just that.

16 Comments
December 30, 2016

Week 36 1/2: The Last Trimester Funk

Doug asked me to take Felicity to get bread at Trader Joe’s today.

That was the question.

That was what sent me into tears.

Because I don’t want to do anything today.

Because I don’t want to be around my daughter for the fifth day in a row.

And why does her daycare have to be closed this week?

And that makes me a terrible mother.

And soon I’m going to have two small human beings that need me.

And I just had to buy the next size up in maternity pants.

And the next size up in underwear.

And I woke up every hour on the hour last night. To either pee or switch positions.

And I don’t want to be pregnant anymore.

But I’m not ready to have another baby.

And after the miscarriage last year, I swore to myself that I’d never complain about being pregnant again.

And I am.

And I woke up to an email from a friend who just had her baby this morning and she was just so beautiful and life is so full of goodness.

And I’m so grateful that my body was able to do this without complication just one more time.

And I know a small fraction of the things that could have gone wrong so far.

And my legs don’t look like my legs anymore.

And I had to send out a family Christmas picture in which my daughter looks like an angel and I look like a puffed-up version of myself.

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And everyone tells me that I’m really not carrying much extra weight.

And I’m tired of thinking about whether I’m eating enough protein or vegetables or calcium or omega-3s.

And I just really want to have a Guinness.

And I don’t want to think about how much weight I’ll have to lose this time.

And all I really, really want to do is lie in my bed with my Snoogle wrapped around me and pull the covers up to my face and sleep and sleep and sleep like I won’t sleep for another year.

Because once this baby escapes, that’s pretty much the truth.

 

4 Comments