Self-Censorship and Zoe (Finally) Sleeps

I’ve just deleted my previous two posts because I found them whiny and depressing. I’ve been venting about a few things that are beyond my control. Since I can’t change them, I think I should focus on the things I can change and I think I’ll feel better. I suspect part of my moodiness is hormonal. Supposedly, three-four months post-baby, moms go through a hormonal readjustment. I’ve been a little blue lately. It’s sort of like mid-grade PMS. I’m going to wait a couple of weeks and see if that improves. But I haven’t been doing the things that always help me feel better, writing and exercising, and that’s something I can work on.

So, onto Zoe and her sleeping schedule, which I know will interest only her grandmother(s) and possibly other parents. I’ve mentioned before that Z. is not a typical napper. For the first month of her life, she wouldn’t sleep unless someone was holding her. That improved over time, but she never napped long while I was home with her, maybe 30-45 minutes. When Nate took care of her for the couple of weeks before daycare started, she would nap an hour-two hours with him sometimes. I suspect the difference was breastfeeding versus bottles. She would eat a little here and there with me, but with the bottles, she would chug and then pass out for those longer naps.

She’s always slept with us. She wouldn’t sleep in her crib. The second we’d try to set her down in her crib/bassinet, she’d wake up. She’d be fine for a few minutes, then once she got bored, she’d start crying, which would escalate to screaming/her hair getting wet with sweat/and her sometimes getting so worked up she'd puke. So the whole cry-it-out method didn’t really work with her. I found the online advice column Ask Moxie through myrubberbandball and her advice has been a huge help. A few nuggets of wisdom:

“First of all, kids sleep the way they sleep. Most of it is individual personality. I thought that when I only had one kid, but now that I have two, I'm absolutely sure it's the case. There's only so much a parent can do to influence the way a baby or child sleeps, so you can stop feeling either guilty or smug right now.”

And:

“Whatever gets the maximum number of hours of sleep for the maximum number of people in your household, that's what you should do. And when anyone asks you how your baby's sleeping, just lie and say everything's great.”

This is all from this entry: http://moxie.blogs.com/askmoxie/2005/12/quick_and_dirty.html

Here’s another excellent quote:

“I don't think sleep is a ‘somewhat minor issue’ at all. I think sleep is a major major (did I say ‘major’ yet?) issue, and is the thing that causes parents the most stress (aside from serious or chronic illness in their children). Someone once mentioned to me that she thought sleep was The Issue for our generation of parents, the way feeding was in the 80s (when breastfeeding started to come back), and the way toilet training was in the 40s. I don't know why this is, but I agree. Maybe we have so many more issues with sleep because our kids don't sleep on their stomachs anymore? Who knows. But I do know it makes most of us feel completely, worthlessly incompetent at worst and totally fried at best.”

http://moxie.blogs.com/askmoxie/2005/12/qa_nighttime_sl.html


So, all this is to say, sleep is the main thing that stresses me out with Zoe. We’ve had some minor issues here and there with breastfeeding, but they’re usually short-lived, probably because I got some great support early on. But sleep? For some reason I never expected sleep to be such a big deal. It is.

This week has been interesting. She’s been sleeping in a crib at daycare because that is the only option. And at home, I’ve suspected she was probably ready to sleep in her crib for a couple of weeks. Like I said before, she used to only sleep if I held her, with one arm either around or under her. But lately, she’d nurse, then begin pushing/twisting away from me after she was asleep, very clearly wanting her own space. I thought she was ready, but we didn’t want to try the crib thing right before she started daycare because if it didn’t work we didn’t want her to be exhausted going into a new situation.

But this past week, I just felt like she was ready. For the past few nights, she’s fallen asleep around 7:15-7:30 p.m. Half an hour or so later, she wakes up fussing. She either needs a pacifier or to eat a little bit more. She doesn’t fully wake up if I get to her fast enough and she’ll nurse or suck on the paci for about ten minutes. Then she is out. I put her in her crib. No crying, no screaming, no puking. She’s asleep until midnight or four, when she eats again. Sometimes she wakes up twice a night, sometimes only one. She eats, falls asleep again, and I put her back in her crib. She wakes up for good around 6:30-7:30 a.m.

I’m no longer listening to the “experts.” That whole put them down drowsy but awake? I get the principle but so far it hasn’t worked for us. At all. I think eventually she will get old enough and her habits will be established, her body will be more developmentally mature, and then we might be able to do the drowsy but awake thing. Maybe not. Who knows? I hear teething is a real pain in the ass with the nighttime schedule, but this week has been a good one for sleeping.