after the fourth night

After one night with no periods of sleep longer than 2 hours (or so), you are befuddled, wondering what the hell is wrong with the baby, that she is waking you up so often when she had been sleeping so much better. You go to work exhausted, feeling a little sorry for yourself, resolving to go to bed early that night.

On the second night with no period of sleep longer than 2 hours, you keep throwing little tantrums in the middle of the night. "An hour and a half?! What the hell? She can't possibly be hungry again!" You get angrier and angrier as the night goes on, and by morning you are wiped out from that as well as from the lack of sleep. Work keeps frustrating you so much that you keep bursting into tears. But you get to work from home that day, so things are a little better. You lie down and sleep when the baby goes to bed at 6:00, get up again at 6:45 or so, go back to bed for the night at 9:30.

After the third night, you are surprised to find that you actually don't feel too bad. When you walk back into the bedroom at 6:30, after your shower, you find the baby smiling and kicking her legs at you, and when you take her out of the crib, she tries to talk to you. Her voice is raspy and hoarse, and it occurs to you that although she might not have been hungry that often, she very likely could have been thirsty. The family is clearly passing around a mild cold. That day at work you find yourself giggling with a co-worker who happens to also be a mother of a baby, and another co-worker comments on what the two of you will be like when you get a good night's sleep. You laugh.

After the fourth night, when none of the periods of sleep even make it all the way to two hours, you feel like the walking dead. You leave for work before even the baby is happy to be awake, and for the second day in a row you don't see your older child at all in the morning (the same older child who told you last night, calmly, when you asked her what she thought, that "I think I don't want you to talk to me"). Your head is heavy, your eyes are scratchy and sore. You think you have no sense of humor, and you cry when the elevator door closes in your face for no explicable reason. You get to work before 7 with your Starbucks coffee with soy creamer (since you can't drink dairy because you're breastfeeding and eating dairy makes the baby, among other things, SLEEP BADLY, HA HA!), and although it's quiet and you should be getting a lot of work done, you have a hard time concentrating. You take some pictures of yourself and spend way too long writing a lengthy caption for one of them.

You are really hoping that the next night is better. And are grateful that even if it's not, you have Friday off.

Or maybe that's just me.

Comments

[Laura]

Oh, that's downright brutal. Wish all of your readers/friends could attach sleep to our comments that you could somehow patch together for a sleep quilt to put around your shoulders. Thinking of you and hoping the workday ends quickly for you.

Laura

[Nicole]

There is nothing more painful than those "wake-up calls" when you are desperately sleep-deprived. I remember how it would hurt in my bones when I would jolt awake to the baby crying. Thank god that you've got a day off coming up to catch up on some sleep because there is a limit to how much even a Supermom can take.
I don't know if you would be able to do this (ie if your pediatrician would be onboard), but when my daughter was a baby and we were travelling a lot, I would give her a special baby sleepytime (basically, camomile) tea in a bottle at night when she woke up. The brand I bought was from the German company Mustela or sometimes BabyBio. It didn't make her sleep but it seemed to keep her sleeping more calmly so she didn't wake herself up so often. Especially if you think she is just thirsty, not hungry, it might be an option to try.

[Joanne]

OOh those nights are awful - those weeks are awful! I hate it, it feels like you are walking through jello. I hope it gets better soon. Is she a swaddler? Maybe that would get you a little more time? I am a big believer in the Amazing Miracle Blanket. Hang in there sister.

[Martha-Lynn]

I'm so sorry, Jessamyn. You seem to be taking it in stride and handling it with some humor-- I probably would have called in to work and folded in on myself like a fan. I remember nights like that with Eva, and I cried, too...and got angry..and stumbled around uncoordinated and dizzy and slightly nauseous from lack of sleep. And just when I thought I couldn't take any more, 2.5-2 hours became 3-3.5, which felt like a glamorous vacation, and eventually 4, which made me felt like I could tackle the world. (And you know all this! But I had to commiserate.:')

I love the Flickr pictures you post, too, btw. You have such a beautiful family!

[Suzanne]

This too shall pass.

[Jessamyn]

Thanks, you guys. She's already swaddled, Joanne, but thanks for the tip (she was sleeping poorly pretty much from the start, but it had gotten better).

And yes, that's true, Suzanne. But then again, you can say that about pretty much anything, can't you? Sometimes it helps me to think about that. Other times (and I'd say usually when I'm sleep deprived on top of everything else), not so much.

[Anon]

We went through this from about 10-16 weeks with our son. We tried absolutely everything... and it just got worse and worse until he was waking up literally every 45 minutes all night long. He wasn't hungry, didn't need to be changed, didn't have gas, wasn't too hot or cold, he was simply uncomfortable. For us, the saving grace was when he finally learned to roll over at about 16 weeks. Turns out he was just dying to sleep on his tummy. After he learned to roll over, we cried it out for one night and have had nine months of well-rested bliss since then. So, just hang in there and know that it will get better!

[Shawna]

This right here is one of the big reasons we co-sleep - more sleep in the early months for mom and baby. It evens out later though, when they're used to snacking several times a night, and then eventually you have to put in the extra effort to get them into their own bed if you want to ever have the space/privacy back.

[Jessamyn]

That's excellent that co-sleeping works to give you more sleep - sadly, it hasn't worked that way for us when we've tried it. I was sleeping even worse that way. I'm just not sure how a baby fussing every few hour or two IN my bed would make me much more well rested than a baby fussing every hour or two a couple of feet from my bed. I wish it did work for me, though; whatever helps is a good thing. (The sleeping was a little better this weekend.)