EVERYTHING
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First Years (0-2)
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Of all the changes wrought upon my mind, body and spirit after bringing my son into the world, I was least prepared for the weeks and weeks of sleep deprivation that followed his birth. Up until this point, my experience with “all-nighters” was strictly academic. My record was a 72-hour stint of feverous writing required to complete final exam papers. Looking back, those sleepless three days were a walk in the park compared to what I endured (and to a lesser degree, continue to endure) after bringing little Dylan home from the hospital. Strange things happen to you when you haven’t slept in a few days, a few weeks, a few months…Aside from the obvious physical deterioration and mental burnout, exhaustion nips at your heels like a nagging dog until you bear your teeth and bite back. For me, the ugly moment came when a particularly perky couple were praising their 3-week old for sleeping through the night. “Oh yes, she sleeps 12 hours a night. I wonder what’s wrong with your baby?” I think I only growled at them, but I was tempted to attack. The last thing you want to hear when you’re struggling to get two hours of sleep each night is how great someone else has it. So, if you identify with the couple above, you need not read further. This column is for the rest of us, who have seen the day dawn on many a sleepless night and have lived to tell the tale. No mere mortal has yet discovered the sleep secrets of infants, though a few baby bestsellers may be close to solving the mystery. There are those who swear by “Babywise,” “The Baby Whisperer” or “Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child.” I found the latter invaluable in helping ease my guilt at leaving my baby alone in his crib to cry himself to sleep. According to Dr. Mark Weissbluth, author of “Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child, “…all evidence accumulated by a wide array of child health specialists concludes that ‘protest’ crying at bedtime will not cause permanent emotional or psychological problems. In plain fact, the contrary is true.” After soothing, swinging and shushing yourself silly, it helps to know research supports giving yourself a break and your child a chance to learn the important skill of soothing himself. Dr. Weissbluth allowed me to see sleep as a valuable part of my child’s health – as important to his development as food and love. I would never deprive him of food, but I was inadvertently starving my infant of restful sleep by rushing to his crib at every peep. In the same way I would one day have to insist he eat his veggies, I was going to have to be tough on the topic of sleep. In addition to my library of baby sleep aids, I found a few other items valuable to my quest for sleep. A blackout shade is a must for babies who wake with the sun. Purchase a ready-made, pull-down shade or improvise with drapery blackout lining available by the yard at fabric stores. For children who are roused from sleep by the slightest sound, a white noise machine may be helpful. My son responded well to continuous ocean sounds, and my husband and I could fantasize at the same time that we were living in Hawaii. Experts say a winddown ritual is also important to establishing good sleep habits. My son’s routine would start with a warm bath at 5 p.m. followed by a baby massage and about 10 minutes of rocking. After a week or two, my son came to associate this calming period with falling asleep and cried less and less when I ultimately put him down for the night. As illogical as it seemed at the time, the more he slept at night, the better he napped during the day, and vice versa. Even with the best resources on your bedside table, there are nights when nothing seems to calm the savage beast that is your baby. That’s when you will have to rely on the best tool in your arsenal – patience.m S. Danyelle Knight is a regular contributor to OC Family Magazine. |
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