This Is the Stupidest Mistake a New Parent Can Make
Up until yesterday, my 4-month-old daughter had still not
accomplished the elusive sleeping-through-the-night milestone. Quite the
contrary. She'd stir any number of times, which often led to a
five-alarm wail that demanded I fumble into the dark nursery, still
drunk on a partial REM cycle, and blindly feel around her crib for her
fallen pacifier . . . at which point I'd then feel around her face for
her pouting mouth. Five times out of seven (literally), this would coax
her back to dreamland. The other times, she'd continue to cry,
voracious, until I was able to lull her back to sleep with a hefty
top-off of breast milk.
Some nights were better than others, but I assumed we'd ease into it
eventually, with each night one quarter-hour closer to that elusive goal
line.
So, last night wasn't supposed to be the victory lap.
It began when I'd finally gotten her down around 10 p.m. — this
happened after she mocked my attempts at an 8:30 p.m. bedtime routine
with her typical medley of giggles, spurts, and grunts.
At this point, I could have followed the adage to "sleep when the
baby sleeps," but I'd long since called bullsh*t on that philosophy and
often used that time to do laundry, cook meals, pay electric bills — all
the things necessary to keep a family household functioning and Child
Protective Services from knocking on my door asking why I haven't gotten
around to spot-treating that "Daddy's Girl" onesie that's still
suffering from the aftereffects of a massive poopsplosion.
Instead, not yet tired, I hopped on the computer. I had a few
deadlines for work I wanted to finish. After wrapping them up, I looked
at the clock — 11:15 p.m. She was bound to wake up at midnight, so
instead of joining my husband in bed, I took the dog for her last walk.
I got back a few minutes later, the door slamming closed louder than I'd expected.
That certainly woke her up, I thought. It didn't.
Well, it most certainly took her out of that sweet coma-like sleep, and she'll be up any minute. I sat on the couch, scrolling through my Facebook feed, waiting. And waiting. It was now 12:30 a.m. Still nothing.
You've won this round, baby. I was impressed but not optimistic.
I went in the bathroom and fiddled around. I found a nice face mask I'd been meaning to try but thought better of it.
The minute I coat my face in that clay, she'll start crying.
Another 30 minutes went by. Definitely spent by now, I toyed with the
idea of closing my tired eyes but resisted. Although I'm no expert in
sleep training (clearly), I had become well-versed in my own struggle,
and after enough nights like this, I'd learned that sleeping for an
intermittent hour or two was almost as painful as not sleeping at all.
Sometimes, worse. Turns out, this personal discovery has some scientific
backing — researchers published a study last year that revealed a night of interrupted sleep could be as physically detrimental as a total lack of zzzs.
So instead I watched an episode of
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
on Netflix. By this point, even my boobs began to get impatient. They'd
normally have been put to work by now, so for fear they'd go on some
sort of mastitis-induced strike, I pumped. The whir of the machine
caused me to hear phantom cries, and I found myself turning it off every
few minutes, waiting for the sting of my daughter's inevitable call.
That's when I started to get nervous.
This is not normal. She's
not breathing. Dear God, maybe she hasn't been breathing this whole
time. What if she's not been breathing this whole time and I'm just
sitting here twiddling my thumbs, binge-watching a show everyone's
already stopped talking about weeks ago? I dashed to the nursery
room, opened the door with ninja-like silence and precision, and crept
in ever-so-slowly . . . because even I knew I was very likely going to
find a fully living infant. And, unlike that "sleep when the baby
sleeps" nonsense, I've proselytized the sage wisdom in "never wake a
sleeping baby."
After staring intently at her barely moving stomach for a solid 90
seconds, I deduced she was, in fact, inhaling and exhaling. I backed
carefully out of the room and looked at the clock. It was now 3:07 a.m.
I finally got in bed, but the following two hours spurred an internal
mind game in which I debated the merits of A) cutting my losses and
going to sleep before I have to get up for work the next morning, or B)
holding out just a little longer because she's definitely going to be up
any minute. Aaaany minute now. . . .
Finally, at some point after 5 a.m., I stopped sending sleep-deprived
email replies from my phone and drifted off. And then, not 20 minutes
later and like a ton of hysterical bricks, my daughter's awakening from
her marathon slumber served as my morning alarm clock.
My baby girl had done it. She slept through the night. Only I didn't.
The most accomplished night of her existence also marked the stupidest
thing I'd done as a new parent, and I once considered pulling a
particularly large booger out of her fidgety nose with a pair of
tweezers.
So, the moral of this all-nighter? Even if you don't sleep when the
baby sleeps, for the love of God, sleep when the baby sleeps, OK?
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