When friends and random passerby’s in parking lots smiled at my pregnant belly and told me I’d never sleep again once my baby was born, I went home and took a nap. I thought this was an exaggeration along the lines of how my grandma recounted her 25-mile uphill in a blizzard during a space-alien invasion walk to grade-school tale. Now I believe her because I also believe in 4th trimester sleep-deprivation. It’s the real deal, folks. Meet my son:the newborn who never slept.
“Did you know that babies sleep 17 hours during a 24-hour period? That’s a lot!” my friend without a baby gleefully said.
I stared at him
I couldn’t manage a witty retort or even a resounding rebuttal. On approximately two hours of sleep so far, I was lucky I could manage to stand. Last night had been yet another rough night in a rough two months with a non-sleeping newborn. Clearly, the source my friend was quoting had never been in the presence of an actual human baby, because my life looked different. None of the advice I’d been given prepared me for this overwhelming exhaustion.
When I was a wide-eyed preggo, I soaked up the wisdom given by friends who already had kids. It sounded a lot like, “When my baby napped, that’s when I did laundry, worked out, and washed bottles.” Followed by the classic, “Sleep when the baby sleeps.” I clung to these because it gave me hope that I would survive this first phase of life with my newborn. Now I get it. Hope is for the weak.
Most of the tips I received revolved around the premise that a baby actually slept
“Sleep when the baby sleeps” never worked because my infant didn’t sleep. I spent great amounts of time rocking or strolling an overtired, eye-rubbing newborn only to have him doze for a whole 22 minutes. This gave me no time to nap, wash bottles, or do a solitary push-up.
It did give me time enough to lay my infant down in his crib, cuddle up in my bed, and hear my son wake up. Next came feeding time, followed by playtime, followed by trying to sleep again time. This was our daytime.
Our nighttime schedule was filled with colicky screams that would wind down sometime after midnight. Then we’d start our routine all over again. I was run down and this lack of sleep made me prone to over-the-top worrying.
I was wracking my sleepy brain to find the perfect solution to help my son sleep more or even at all. That's when I fell into the habit of over-analyzing every parenting choice I made. I was moving through life in slow motion and I knew sleep was the unreachable antidote.
The icing on the cake was always that social media post
I’d scroll passed a post about how my cousin’s one-month-old was taking two full two-hour naps a day — #winningatnaptimes. I wasn’t sure I would survive. Finally, I called my pediatrician and he said, “You know, some kids aren’t good sleepers at first.” His use of the words “at first” reignited my hope. I’d make it through… but I’d need some help at first.
I finally asked my husband, family, and trusted friends to help when they could so I could sleep. I also made sure I talked to friends who could empathize with what I was experiencing. The sleep and support gave me the extra boost and positive perspective change I needed. And guess what, folks? I’m here to tell the tale. It wasn’t easy, but I survived — and you will too.
