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Friday, November 5th, 2010
My busy season has passed, and with it, the worst of my stressed-out freak-outs. I’m not afraid at night anymore, and I’m not so worried all of the time. Thank you, commenters, for your concern. Post-partum depression (or at least some kind of anxiety problem) definitely crossed my mind. I even read up online about what kind of anxiety meds were safest for breastfeeding, and if things didn’t get better, I was planning to ask my doc about them.
Fortunately, I feel like a cool breeze has blown through. Last Saturday night, I was at the changing table with a smiley Ruby, changing her into her night-night diaper and footie pajamas (so cute!), and I realized all of a sudden that I felt truly content. That finally Halloween was over, and I could just be with my girl again without resenting D for being in the other room instead of helping me, without feeling anxious that I was doing this instead of at the computer working, without having half my mind on advertising or calculating how many orders we needed to get tonight to match last year.
Not that I don’t have other stressful stuff going on. Lately, about a third of the time, Ruby pitches a fit when I try to nurse her, just like she did in her first month of life. I figured she was just picking up on my stress, but it’s still happening enough that I started worrying she wasn’t getting enough to eat. So I scheduled our first paranoia appointment at the doctor, and of course, she’s fine – 14 lbs. 3 oz. at five months, still 50th percentile, still chubby-cheeked and perfect.
It’s good to know she’s not starving, but it’s still incredibly frustrating to try to feed a screaming, punching, writhing, red-faced creature. I’m still not sure what’s up because it happens at random times. It happens if she gets too distracted, if I’m sitting in an uncomfortable chair, if I cover her (but sometimes she doesn’t mind), and especially if she thinks I’m trying to get her to go to sleep.
Which brings me to the ongoing Battle of the Sleep. This child hates. to. sleep. She figures out your get-her-to-sleep tricks, so that what worked last week no longer works. She screams and arches her back and kicks. She refuses to eat at bedtime because it makes her sleepy. Now, oddly – after all her in-car shenanigans – the only reliable nap-inducer is a car ride.
Night before last, she fought – literally, fought – me for an hour and a half (from 10:30 to 12). She fell asleep three times, and I laid her down three times, only to watch her spring back awake almost immediately. After that last time, I was finally at my breaking point and had to wake up D and make him take a turn with her. I listened to him in the next room jiggling her – an old trick that has apparently ceased working – while she yelled and grunted and fought against him. He gave that up and walked around the house with her in the dark until, after almost half an hour, she finally gave in to sleep.
And if you think after that rough beginning, she would sleep a while and give us a break, you would be horribly wrong. I knew she wouldn’t. When my eyes finally closed at 12:30, I already knew they would be open again much too soon. When it’s a bad night, it’s a bad night. And she was awake again at 3, and 5, and roughly every hour after that, and then for the day at 8:30.
Next day, Mama was tired. I couldn’t even keep awake to see who got kicked off Top Chef: Just Desserts. We decided to try to get her to go to bed earlier, so I could go, too (D always goes to bed earlier than us because he has to wake up at 4 a.m.). It was a good thing we started out at 8 because she didn’t finally fall asleep until 9:15.
But it was less volatile, and at least this time she stayed asleep a bit longer, and let me sleep in a little. I actually woke up before her for once. Then today she took two naps with minimal struggle, and – as a result – was cheerful and cry-free all day long. “See, girl,” I want to say, “how lovely life can be when you just sleep?”
The good news is she has never had two bad nights in a row. Just when you think you can’t function one more second without sleep, she lets you sleep. I read in a book that a baby will take all the energy you have, and it appears to be true. She takes everything I have but not more.
And she does give back … like tonight when I got 10 minutes of entertainment out of watching her suck enthusiastically on her big toe and 10 more listening to her squeal at the dog. Besides, fortunately for us both, her smiles in the morning are worth getting punched in the boob at night.
Does Ruby get a bath before bed time? Baths always made my babies sleepy. Babies, Ha! they are now 24, 27 and 30. But a bath always worked.
Karen, I do think one of our problems is a majorly inconsistent bedtime routine. It’s hard to have a routine when D’s work schedule is always changing. Guess I might soon have to figure out how to bathe her by myself.
There are a lot of reasons a five-month-old might fuss at feeding time, but the most common is teething. You might want to try numbing her gums the next time she cries at being put to the breast and see if it helps.
Ugh I hear yah. I’ve got a 17 month old that thinks sleep is evil and I spent TWO hours last night trying to get her to sleep! For most of it my thinking bubble was filled with cuss signs for Hubs, who is away doing his one weekend a month thing. I blame him being gone for her interrupted bedtime routine.
She could be hitting a mental milestone, google wonder weeks. They’ve been pretty spot on for my girlie. About a week of hardcore fussiness and sleepless nights then back to her normal self.
Nursing is such a challenge at every stage, hard but worth it! For awhile when Anna was around that age we had to nurse standing in the dark bathroom (only room with no windows)with the fan on, especially if she was going to sleep. It passed after about a month.
Good luck!
I’m so glad you posted an update! I was starting to worry about you. I’m glad to hear things are going better now–at least with the anxiety.
Sleep. Ugh. My first three were relatively \OK sleepers, though we had some rocky first months with the first baby. Our last baby, #4 though… All I can say is you have my very deepest empathy. The first 6 months were a living hell and even now, at 16 mos., it’s no picnic. I really wish I could share that secret sleep panacea but, the truth is, we never found it. I’m just going hope that this latest sleep problem, like your breastfeeding problems, carseat misery and anxiety will pass and pass quickly, and you all start resting better. Hang in there. One thing I CAN promise you is, none of this lasts forever!
Yeah, we rocked or nursed our first to sleep. Bedtimes were horrible. Naptimes consumed my daytime life. Transition to putting her to bed without rocking her to sleep when she was about 20 months was hell.
With our second, our pediatrician advised us to put her to bed awake; even to wake her just a bit if she was dozing when we laid her down and just say “night-night sweetie.”
I missed having her fall asleep on my shoulder, but she was a champion napper and slept through the night by 8 weeks. (minus growth spurts, ear infections and teething, of course.)
The key was schedule. Sleep, eat, play, repeat. If I put her down before she was rubbing her eyes tired she fell asleep on her own. Just laid her on her back and made sure she had one or two things to look at—not too many—overload isn’t good. Sometimes she would fuss a little bit, or even cry for a few minutes, but I just let her, patted her back occasionally and verbally re-assured her and she quickly fell asleep.
Don’t know if you could try it at this point, but I did the same thing with the next two and haven’t looked back! No nighttime/bedtime transition hell at 2-3 years either.
Our ped. said that we all learn to lie down and fall asleep, why do we think that a baby can’t do it?
Good luck!
OMG..you dont know how to give your baby a bath? Sounds like you need to stop relying on yor husband to do everything! A baby needs strict routine…YOU NEED TO GROW UP~~you have a baby..not a dog…geeze..I dont know about some people..dont deserve kids! SHM @ you!!!
Wow, if I didn’t know better, I’d say there’s a *hint* of jealously there… Get a life Mandy, you troll.
Kristin, you totally rock, mama. But I don’t need to tell you that. Your sweet, happy girl is proof enough.
Wow Mandy! Could you possibly be any more hateful if you tried? I never understand why people leave such harsh comments on blogs. If you don’t like the content you don’t have to read it, just move on!
Don’t worry about “Mandy,” guys. I have a feeling it’s the same old troll who resurfaces every now and then. She said a lot of rude things when we were trying to adopt but had disappeared in recent months. Guess she’s back! Hurray!
How old is she now? 5 months or so? Yup. THat was the time Alexa went on Nursing strike, and was a gong show at night. We did the sleepeasy solution, and I’m not kidding, it took 5 days, and she was pretty much sleeping through every night.
Here’s the thing I notice with Alexa. She wakes up less, but as she gets older the fits she has are MORE DRAMATIC. So good sleep in general, but when she is getting sick, watch the heck out. She will make sure to wake up screaming bloody murder.
It’s just one of those phases that WILL pass. I promise. Sleep is tricky at that age. They’re getting more aware of their surroundings, and going through lots of physical development which makes them have some wake-ups (scream fests) at night. Give it time and patience. Also, gentle sleep training might help, wether you decide to do cry-it-out or not.