I never intended to sleep with my child, honest. She came home in November and it was super cold and she was so small and fragile. She seemed chilly. She seemed like she could never settle unless she cuddled up to me. So I took her into bed with me and she slept and fed peacefully. The whole time, I worried. I worried that she would smother, and I worried that I wasn't doing the right thing. They say, you know, that if they don't learn to sleep in their own crib that they will be deficient in some way and they will never sleep through the night. Still, I couldn't quite let her cry it out. She just slept better in bed with me and I slept better too.
Then I went back to work. She was still breastfeeding. Even if I did wean her out of our bed, there was no way in hell that I was going to get up every two hours and go into her room to feed her, and then be able to get up and go to work every day. Now that I was away from her 3 days a week, I missed her, and she missed me. It was a tough transition. So we stayed together.
I thought that maybe when she spent time in the hospital, at 5 months, when she had heart surgery, that would give us the separation we needed to make the split. That it was a necessary split. That I should get her out of my bed because they say that's the "right" thing to do. I spent 5 nights in the hospital with her. Three of those nights she was in the ICU and slept by her bedside. I got up every two hours to pump, and to be with her. She was so drugged out that she didn't even know I was there. But I knew it. I was never going to let her feel abandoned in that strange place.
When she got out of the ICU, I sat in a chair, holding her all night long. She was attached to so many tubes and wires that it was so scary balancing them all to get her into my arms, but still I couldn't let her go. I didn't want her to sit in that steel crib attached to machines without her mother's touch. Some of the babies spent days or even weeks sleeping alone in those hospital rooms while their parents slept elsewhere and it broke my heart.
So she came home, and she slept with me still. I couldn't let her go, although she was getting older, and squirmier. And I was getting really sick of going to bed at 8:30 with her. I wanted to be an adult again!
Finally we tried a different trick. We started rocking her to sleep, and then transferring her to the crib. It was surprisingly easy! She would sleep in the crib for 4-6 hours, and when she woke in the middle of the night I'd take her to bed and we could be close again until morning. By then I was only breastfeeding her a few times a day. This was a natural progression and we were all very happy with it. It was so liberating to be able to have some time to regain my adult conversation, although at first we would just sit at the dining room table whispering to each other.
We went on like this for a long time, six months or more. Some nights were better and some nights were worse, depending on if she was sick or teething or going through something, but in general this was a happy arrangement, a good compromise. I stopped worrying about her sleep habits. She was getting 11 hours of sleep consistently, and a nap during the day consistently. I didn't care if she still slept in my bed sometimes, because we all agreed as a family that this is how we liked it, and it was no one else's business.
I, however, still don't sleep more than 3-4 hours in a row. Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm up for hours, worrying, mind spinning, anxious about work or home or both. I have had this anxious insomnia off and on for years, but it seems like it's worse now that I have double the things to worry about. Even if the baby sleeps all night, I never do. I'm starting to think that 8 hours of sleep, in a row, is just a myth or an unattainable cruel lie somebody made up.
Daddy has his own sleep disorder problems. He doesn't go to bed before 2:30am, ever. This has been a real problem in our relationship because often my nighttime insomnia is kicked off by him waking me up by coming to bed. When he sleeps on the couch, I sleep much better. A Lucy-Desi sleeping in separate beds arrangement has never been an acceptable solution to me, and we've been struggling about this for years even before the baby. In fact, I'm pretty sure it contributed to us not being able to have a baby for such a long time. Now that she's here, it just contributes more chaos and frustration to the sleep mix.
Lately, Arli has taken a turn for the worse with the sleeping. Rather than this lasting a day or two and getting back to normal, it's been over a week now. She is napping inconsistently, if at all, and she is so squirmy at night that she can't get to sleep before 9:30 most nights. She has been waking about 6:30, so she's getting maybe 9 hours of sleep a night. And to top it all off, she's refusing to go to sleep in her crib for any reason, night or day. She's been sick, and teething, and we have been accommodating her by taking turns going to bed with her. Now that she's better, I do not want this to become the new normal! We are quickly becoming the Cranky Family, and it's not good.
As much as I want to hold and love and comfort my sweet daughter, I have not had a second to myself and it's driving me truly insane. I don't want to be impatient with her in the short precious time that we have together. I want her to drift off to sleep calm, secure and peacefully. Patience is what it takes to right the sleep ship. But when quality sleep is at such a premium, it's so hard to be mindful of that!
I think that what she's going through is normal baby stuff, and that she will eventually go to sleep on her own, get enough rest, and sleep in her own space when the time is right. I do believe this. But I also worry (and stay up at night worrying about it) that we will pass on our own freaky anxious bad sleep habits to her. You can be as big of a freak as you are comfortable with, but when the kids come along, you really have to take a look at all of that and be a good example. This is how our kids become our teachers, and help us to become better people. Or we crack up from the pressure and get locked up in a loony bin. I aspire to the former.
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