6 months, round 2 -- my lament on lost sleep

i sat down to write this post and before i got to it noticed i had an overwhelming number of reads on louisa's birth story. just this week i even had a friend of a friend who i had only just met tell me she read it and loved it. i'm so glad that her arrival into this world has shown people a beautiful encounter with birth!

so anyway, i start re-visiting that post i made so many months ago and i noticed a distinct pattern repeat of the days leading up to her birth and where we are now.

i've had so many assumptions about her--when she would be born, how she would be as a baby, and even though in some ways i have correct intuition, she surprises me more and more every day. the snippet in her birth post where i go into being overdue with her, anxious for her to come out, where everyone is telling me all the tricks in the book to kick me into labor, without any of them ever working...let's just say that sounds very familiar!

to preface where i'm about to take this blog, i'll just say (and i give you permission to hate me) that my first child was a great sleeper as a baby. she slept 8 hours straight at 8 weeks and kept on going. she had only a few "regressions" that were very minor. one at 11 months and another right before 2. she's not been a great sleeper ever since she reached about 14-15 months, but it's been manageable. on a bad week she wakes up crying most nights and we have to console her in whatever way. she doesn't do well off schedule or with little sleep and is prone to night terrors. all of this...MINOR in comparison to the present case.

i honestly don't know if i really bought into the fact that most babies don't sleep as well as june did. i thought they all could, but somewhere along the way, someone did something wrong and that's why their kid wasn't sleeping. or in some cases maybe it was illness related, and in more rare cases due to the very uncommon nature of the child. the ignorance under which i formed this opinion is shameful.

i deeply and sincerely apologize to anyone i have passed judgement on. i've learned my lesson and then some.

naturally, i assumed that we would have another baby sleeping though the night--or at least long stretches--by no later than 6 months. {here is where i insert a laugh or sarcastic remark or lament, but i can no more organize my emotions in writing than i can in person, so i will not attempt}

louisa came into the world, sweet and snuggly. the easiest infant you could ask for. i nursed her, burped her, played with her a bit, and then put her down for a nap and she would drift off for a while. my adjustment to bringing her home was a breeze. i didn't have the baby blues i had with june and having nursed a newborn before, the emotional roller coaster that learning to nurse a baby brings (because if you've done it you know it doesn't come naturally) was a distant memory. we were in sync, she was always happy, and by 2 months she was sleeping 5-6 hours at night. at one point a couple weeks into it, i remember sitting up at night googling colic because i wondered if she could still bring us unforeseen challenges. she did. but not in ways i would have guessed.

around 3 1/2 months she began waking every 3-4 hours again at night and was fighting naps tooth and nail. she would sleep for only 45 minutes at time at most. this pattern continued and as time went on she started adding in night wakings even when she wasn't hungry. at some point in all this, i had a few suggestions to move her from our bedside/bed (each night was kind of a blur of nursing her in bed and scooting her back into the bassinet half awake) to her crib. "she won't smell you so she won't wake up as much." "my baby started sleeping through the night a month after we moved him." the list went on. success story after success story. so about a month or so ago we moved her to her crib. naps first. then bedtime. total. and complete. disaster. she hated it. but in the name of consistency we stuck to it.

"give it time" they all said.

nope. wasn't happening.

in the last several weeks--because i had reached my limit physically and mentally--i started sending my husband in after her for some wakings when i knew she wasn't hungry. but because she has a healthy set of lungs on her, there's nowhere in our house you can go and not hear her cry. so then we were both awake for hours every night. in fact, i think the last time i slept more than 3 hours in a row was when she was 12 weeks. and now she's almost 6 months. you do the math. 3 hours in a row is a good night these days.

before i turn this into a pity party on how much sleep we're not getting, i have to give God due praise and credit. because, really, i should be more tired than i am. we should be dragging by the end of the day. but somehow, with coffee and prayer, we make it through only feeling a minimal amount of tired.

what sucks the most about sleep deprivation is not the physical effects; its the emotional roller coaster you are stuck on. the lingering mental fog. the obsession with sleep and schedules. i am trapped in a desperate need for my brain and soul to rest.

i forget simple tasks. i have forgotten two important days at june's preschool (i'm sure her teachers think i either don't care or am a total flake). my friendships are kind of floating at sea. i can't keep my house in order. our refrigerator is always empty. i do still enjoy cooking but most days i simply don't feel like it. that or the complete chaos of a baby that goes to bed at 7 and a toddler that goes to bed at 8 is so daunting that the whirlwind of bedtime routines scares me out of creating any sort of meal that requires enjoyment. eat it fast and move on.

i feel like i'm missing christmas with my almost-3-year-old, who is old enough now to really enjoy the season. i resent that we can't spend more time doing christmas-y stuff. i resent that i have to "shush" her so many times a day because the thought of her waking the baby puts me on pins and needles. i've screamed at my dogs for barking and waking her. i'm in a place where i just want to move on and be done.

i have a photo of june at the same age of louisa. the caption reads "best 5 months of my life." i feel sad and guilty that i can't say the same now. i feel like i'm missing louisa's baby time. it's not enough that you forget most of it anyway. i don't remember the specifics of loving this age when june was a baby--i just know she was so much fun. i don't want to look back on the fog of this time with louisa and only remember that she didn't sleep. i feel guilty for wishing this time away. every time someone tells me "these are the best years" it stings. they must not see my tired eyes and my weary soul.

and if that's not bad enough, the barrage of "helpful advice" you get when your baby is not sleeping is enough to put you in a mental institution. really. i've heard it all. i've DONE it all. i've questioned it all. i've revisited it all. i've read the research and the pros and cons of different sleep training methods. i've posted questions on mom forums. sleep forums.

and yet, each piece of advice is given to you as if it's the magic cure all. i appreciate any of you who have offered up advice--i really do. i know you're only trying to help. but when a baby doesn't sleep, she just doesn't sleep. adjusting my thermostat 3 degrees isn't going to magically help her doze off all night. there have been harsher methods suggested to me and gentle ones. old fashioned, and new science. they either flat out don't work, or don't work for our family. and they just leave me in more frustration.

i'm in a constant yo-yo between telling myself it's just going to take time, and then reaching a new limit and telling myself there has GOT to be some cure for this. the mind games i've created for myself are exhausting.

and worst of all are the judgements of character. i don't know what's worse--insulting my parenting styles--as if somehow, when i'm rocking a crying baby at 2 am, i don't wonder if i'm doing something wrong, someone thinks it's helpful or wise to suggest that somehow i'm to blame for this...

OR

suggesting that its in her character. that she's "difficult" or that she's going to cause me trouble. i resent that just as much as i resent the people that hoped she was a boy for the sake of "even teams" at home.

as much mental insanity as all this has caused me, as many stages as i've gone through emotionally (much like grief--including anger, at myself, at God, at others, even at my baby), somehow deep down in there i know this is only a season and i know that i am being fiercely and strongly molded right now.

i want sleep FAR more than i wanted her to be born on time, but i find myself in the same situation. where i just have to block everyone out, wade through my emotions, and let God present me with the door to walk through. when he showed me that door with her birth, i was fearful, but i walked on and came out the other side with a more beautiful birth story than i ever could have imagined.

right now i don't know if we are walking towards the door. i know we're walking towards a door. i know we're doing something new and i am believing that it will work. if it doesn't...well...honestly i don't want to think about it. so i won't even go there for the sake of my sanity...what's left of it. at this point i don't care when she sleeps through the night, but if we can get those seemingly pointless wakings under control, so that i can get a blissful 4 or 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep...well that would just be heaven.

she even has a cold right now that's kind of pushing her back a little in progress but i don't mind. i'm believing we will make it out of this so a minor setback hasn't dampened my spirits too much (but then again they're still drying out so...)

i've had many MANY moments in this journey where i've told people i just don't understand. like many trials, i don't understand what the purpose of this one is, and probably won't until it's long over. my husband and i agree it's one of the hardest things we've done. to you who read that last sentence with doubt or even chuckled to yourself, trust me when i say WE'VE DONE HARD THINGS. and this. THIS IS HARD.

what will the result be? what sort of help might i be to others in this situation? what kind of friend will i be to new mothers? how much better of a parent will i be? i don't know. but these are the things that drive me on days when i have to leave my screaming baby in a room alone because i just can't do it anymore.

for such a common complaint in the first months (or even the first year...or even beyond!) of post partum life, i never knew just how deep it could get. i hope to never forget this place i'm in. i hope to move on from it. and quickly! but i don't want to forget.

i know one thing--i will not look past the tired eyes of another mom again. because it's not all the same. there are varying degrees of sleeplessness. i had it easy the first go-round. i had no right to complain. but i also unfairly shrugged off other moms' complaints because i saw them as equal to my experience. i bet if for every time someone asked that mom how her baby was sleeping, that they also asked that mom how SHE was doing, maybe she wouldn't feel so sewn into the identity of her sleepless baby. maybe she could get past the obsession of her baby's sleep by knowing she had people that cared about her. maybe if someone told her she was doing a great job instead of telling her what she was or wasn't doing that was causing her baby to be wakeful...

i'm just saying. i know from experience.

{and for the record i have had some really great unbiased support, so if you've been that for me, i am so grateful. you've listened to me go on about my frustrations in the same clothes i wore to bed or the day before (or both) without make up or washed hair. you've joined me on this walk while i let out my frustrations and didn't offer up a quick fix and just said "yeah girl, it sucks, but you've got this" letting me feel just a little bit human for the moment. you've checked in on me via text, given me grace, and believed in the good nature of my baby despite her hatred of sleep. golden. you are golden.}

weary mom out there. up all night mom out there. sleeping in parking lots mom out there. crying while your baby cries mom out there. i see you. i've stood where you stand. i'm standing where you stand. and we will make it through. stronger. better. one day you will be driving to soccer games or attending school plays or helping her apply for college and you will say to yourself "it seems like yesterday she was a baby--shoo! that baby did NOT sleep!" and you'll roll your eyes and shake your head and puff out a tiny sigh of exhaustion still trapped inside from long ago and smile a little. because you made it.

oh, louisa. louisa rae. graceful warrior. we must have done this to ourselves when we named you! {you can laugh now--that was satirical}

i look at her when she's in my arms and smiling that sweet, happy, heart-melting smile of hers. when we find a quiet moment together i pray that one day she will fight for something great with the "warrior" in her that fights sleep so much now. i pray that we show her all the things worth fighting for in this life and that she choses carefully. and with grace.

i don't take names lightly. i believe that God truly does know us by name before we even exist. and i know that louisa's name was picked for her before we even knew she would join our family. i know that her graceful fighting spirit is not a mistake. it is not a flaw. one day (hopefully soon) we will make it out of this together and know that it served for good.

all things work together for good.