The Subject of Sleep

Racing to the bathroom during the night whilst pregnant with our first child,  I would remind myself, “It’s preparation for when the baby comes”, the lack of sleep I mean, at least that’s what I had read. I knew I would be in for night waking as baby needed to feed every few hours, but if I was going to be truly prepared I should have hired a tiny person to scream in my ears at decibels I was unaware existed, all day every day, only allowing for a few minutes respite here and there where the quiet would be so shocking I would wonder if the baby was okay. At the very least I thought the hospital should have handed me a brochure on sleep with fun facts such as “You will never need an alarm clock again” and articles including “Awkward positions you will now sleep in as your co-sleeping toddler wrestles for bed space”.

I honestly don’t remember much of the first few weeks after our baby was born. I was unwell and three weeks after the birth of our first daughter on a regular Thursday, whilst home with only my baby, I suffered a secondary PPH (meaning a whole lot of blood,  and a real acceptance that this was the end, as I held our tiny daughter in my arms feeding her as we waited for an ambulance to arrive, followed by much pain and a hospital stay). After that whole dramatic debacle it appeared our little baby no longer knew how to sleep, if she ever really did as I don’t really have any memory of those early weeks. She would scream non stop as we held her and paced the confines of our home. Nurses visited with great tips of how to convince our baby she was still safe in her womb with wraps and taps and pats and “shhhh” sounds. It was all very practical advice but when the nurse was unable to get our baby to sleep I could see in her face something was unusual about the way our baby didn’t sleep. Sleep school was referred and so off I went in hopes of finding an answer to our sleep woes.

We sat in a room, a circle of sleep deprived new mums, holding our babies. Most babies cried on and off, I held my screaming bundle, nervously comforting her as best I knew how. Another mother offered to help, but how could she help, our baby cried when held, she cried when wrapped, she cried when in her bassinet, or when in a baby carrier. There was no cure, she only nodded off for a few minutes here or there out of pure exhaustion from screaming so much. When she slept for those few minutes I would sigh with relief, then she would awake and I would wonder if I had sighed too loudly. At the start of the class we introduced ourselves and our babies and told of our no sleep stories. I sobbed as I spoke and my baby cried. At the end of the class a nurse came up to me and said I would be fast tracked to residential stay, they must have felt sorry for us, a pair of tired crying girls.

Sleep school was great, and during our stay our daughter was diagnosed with reflux and a urinary tract infection and after treatment she finally slept. Turns out sleep promotes more sleep, a phenomenon our baby learnt whilst at sleep school. It was as if she realised that “Hey, sleep isn’t so bad, I wake up feeling great instead of feeling crappy…all.the.time, and mum seems happier too!” So when we returned home and she slept, in her cot, for more than 5 minutes, I really knew then how precious time was. I was so accustomed to no sleep that with a bit of extra sleep at night I had energy to burn so whenever my baby slept I would be busy making, doing, preparing scrapbooks, cleaning, cooking meals.

When she was 3 months old we were finally ready to tackle outings on our own and mothers group was the first stop. Now outings were a carefully planned and precisely timed event. We only had so much time between sleeps to get out and back home. I remember seeing some mums with babes sleeping on the floor. The floor! My baby only slept wrapped in a sheet, dummy in her mouth, and with a heart beat rhythmic tap on her bottom as I sang then “Shh, shh, shhhed” her to sleep. I was amazed at this baby who was happy playing one minute then calmly asleep the next. I couldn’t let myself get too distracted by these wonder sleepers though as my baby had already been awake for 57 minutes and I needed to get back home in time to prepare her for her next sleep. After several failed attempts my husband and I were very well aware our baby only ever slept wrapped in her cot with dummy in her mouth and a rhythmic heartbeat tap on her bottom as we sang then “Shh, shh, shhhhed her” off to sleep. We even had a CD that played calming waterfall music, and we knew the 7th track featured a thunderstorm (oh we knew aright, we knew our darling baby didn’t like the sound of thunder) so we waited outside her room till the exact moment before track 7 started so we could skip it and our baby would continue to sleep calmly.

The looks people would give us when we explained we had to leave various places and events as our baby needs a sleep, and would only sleep wrapped in a sheet, dummy in her mouth, and with a heart beat rhythmic tap on her bottom as I sang then “Shh, shh, shhhed” her to sleep, could be quite confronting. But if only those people knew the anguish we experienced in the first two months of parenthood with a screaming baby who never slept. I look back at our first baby’s scrapbook and smile as I look at the double page spread of “sleeping” photos. It seemed every time she did sleep we were so shocked and amazed we had to capture the moment to remember it in case she didn’t sleep again. So our outings were strictly timed for many many months. Our conversations revolved around our baby’s sleep routine, when she last slept, how long for, how many sleep cycles did 72 minutes equate to, and when she needed to be wrapped, dummied, tapped and “Shh, sh, shhhhed” to sleep again.

With our second baby I can’t remember much about the early days (poor forgotten middle child), but I do recall her falling asleep on me on many occasions and us being more relaxed about the whole subject of sleep. And now with our third baby who has no hope of any routine as he is carted between his big sister’s preschool and play schedules and activities, I have chosen not to worry about sleep at all. Yes I have broken many sleep school rules with him as we co sleep and I carry him in a carrier every outing we have and in the early weeks all day. But as he snores next to me like a little kitten purring contentedly and he becomes better at self settling and sleeping alone in his bassinet I believe I have found the key to sleep; secure attachment and being relaxed about the subject of sleep (along with wrapping and singing and some gentle “shh, shh, shhhing”). Although, when he does sleep really well, I’m afraid if I tell anyone it will jinx us or something, so I just enjoy those days when he does sleep well, and on the days he doesn’t sleep so well, perhaps I eat a little extra chocolate. My husband often baffles over the phrase “Sleep like a baby” suggesting you might prefer a baby to be able to “sleep like a cat” being able to sleep easily and anywhere and whenever its needed to maintain happiness.

And on the rare occasions now when all three kids are asleep at the same time in the middle of the day, I am often in such disbelief that I spend that time doing non-constructive things as I anticipate their waking up at any given moment. As I look in on my beautiful sleeping babes, I realise its not that parents want their kids to sleep all the time even though we might spend a lot of time trying to get them to sleep. I understand our children look so beautiful sleeping peacefully because as they sleep well we know their up-time has the capacity to be so much greater with a decent night’s sleep, and at the very least we have time to recharge and be better parents.