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Tuesday, November 9th, 2010
Last night was horrible. I thought that one night last week was bad, but this was epic levels of bad. She woke up three times, screamed, SCREAMED, arched her back, kicked, screamed while I held her but screamed louder if I lay her down, acted hungry but refused to eat, screamed some more every time I tried to feed her. The first two times I was frustrated and irritated and exhausted, sick with a cold on top of it all, my nose dripping and no tissue in reach; the third time, I thought something must be wrong with her and decided to call the doctor in the morning.
When she’s screaming like that, I get a strange, trembling, bubbling-up feeling, somewhere between crying and laughing. I guess that’s what they call hysteria. I feel desperation – make it stop, make it stop, must sleep, must sleep – and compassion – my poor angel, what’s wrong, angel – and in the midst of all this, my body is constantly moving – jiggling, bouncing, dancing from foot to foot- and I’m singing “Feed the Birds” from Mary Poppins in my cracked sore-throat voice over and over.
Finally, it occurred to me she might’ve caught my cold and might have a stuffy nose, too, so I decided to use the aspirator (around here, we call it the “booger sucker”). Laying her down and making her be still to use it made her angrier than ever, but a few minutes later she actually consented to eat and then fell asleep. I laid her in the bed beside me, and she happily snoozed away on her side nestled against me the rest of the night.
In the morning, she rolled over on her belly, lifted up her head to look at me, and grinned sunnily. It’s like this every time. No matter how bad the night was, she wakes seemingly rested and happy, a clean slate. Meanwhile, Mama is a zombie.
I didn’t call the doctor because she was just there last week with similar issues, and they basically said nothing’s wrong, and here she is today happy and, so far, has eaten well without incident. I’m told she isn’t teething; I’m told she’s gaining weight fine. Still, in the night when my baby is screaming like she’s being tortured, what am I to think?
I stopped at Walgreens and bought all the cold remedies they had for babies – saline nasal spray and “BabyRub” by VapoRub – and an ear thermometer since Miss FlailyScreamyPants doesn’t cooperate too well with a traditional thermometer. So far today, her temperature is normal and I haven’t needed to use the other remedies. She visited with Granny over lunch and happily crumpled up paper bags. This afternoon, she fell asleep in her daddy’s arms and is now napping away in her crib.
Really, when I think about it, the day times have gotten much better and more fun. I can snap her out of almost any low-level fuss with a chorus of “One is the Loneliest Number,” she requires less constant walking around (my mom and dad call it “going on walkabout”), and she can be entertained with books, teethers, plastic key rings, the dogs, the cats, and Yo Gabba Gabba. She grins at strangers, sleeps in the car, and lets us eat dinner in peace if we set her in her Bumbo on the table. I can even take a shower because I put her in there with me in her bath seat, and she has a blast splashing in the water and, afterward, smiling at me while she watches me blow dry my hair.
It’s mostly the evenings and nights that have gone all wonky. The eating has gotten worse, to the point that she even refused the bottle twice (she had NEVER done that before) and got absolutely furious every time we tried to offer it. That convinced me that it’s not me, not my stress level or something up with my milk. It’s something up with her, and I have no idea what. If she’s not teething, what IS it, and why did it surface all of sudden a few weeks ago?
I know she’s more distractible now. Even when she’s eating fairly well, she stops often to look up at me and grin or turn to see what’s on TV or look at the cat who just ran by. I also know she’s impatient and easily frustrated. The worst fits usually happen if she’s already fussy before we start and I can’t make things happen fast enough for her liking.
And as for the sleep thing, her doctor also recommended not nursing her to sleep, putting her to bed drowsy and letting her fall asleep on her own. She said Ruby’s old enough now that it’s okay to let her a cry a little.
Yeah, I would be okay with her “crying a little,” too. But there is no “cry a little” for this child. She is INTENSE. For example, she’s constantly rolling herself over onto her tummy and then getting mad when she can’t figure out how to get back. So yesterday I decided to let her fuss for a bit and try to figure it out on her own. Yeah. So that turned into a massive screaming fit that didn’t end for several minutes even after I rescued her. Sigh.
There have been a handful of times when I was so exhausted from trying to coax her into sleep that I laid her down in her crib, turned on her glowy seahorse, and sneaked away, and she actually, miraculously fell asleep. Other times, I tried it and within two minutes she was yelling her head off. So I have hope this approach might work in the future, but it’s definitely not consistently working yet.
In the mean time, Mama’s feeling kinda crazy. It has been a month since I’ve slept more than 4 hours at a time, and most nights we only make it to three hours. I never (well, almost never) get any help at night because D has to be up for work at a certain time and I don’t, so I try not to wake him. I end up falling asleep feeding her in the recliner half the time and wake up stiff-necked and cold at 5 a.m. I went to the chiropractor yesterday, and even he was surprised how knotted up my entire body was.
Even when things are good – which they honestly are most of the time – I live in dread of the next feeding, when she might decide to fight me and behave as if I’m trying to poison her, instead of giving her my hard-won, life-giving milk. I wish I could tell her how much I’m trying, how hard I’m working to make her happy and healthy – heck, I do tell her. When she’s crying at me, when I’m jiggling her on my shoulder and rubbing her back, and she’s screaming relentlessly in my ear, I say, “Mama’s trying, baby, Mama’s doing everything she can.”
Only thing is, she can’t hear me over her own voice.
I wish I could give you a big hug. This is all so hard. The sleep thing is crazy hard. I know, I’m still there with a baby I nurse to sleep every time she sleeps, every day of her life for 17 months =( As hard as the falling asleep by herself thing is, it’s great that you’re starting it now because it’s sooo much harder later on. You’re doing the right thing. Have you read Elizabeth Pantley’s No-Cry Sleep Solution? It has some great tips.
As far as the refusing her milk: Could she have silent reflux? How are her diaps? Maybe an allergy? I know the doc will likely say that she is gaining but if she’s in that much pain then something is up!
Lastly! Wake your husband up and hand him the girlie when you need a break. He can space out at work or grab an extra cup of coffee. You’re working 24 hours a day right now. You deserve breaks too, I’m sure he’ll agree.
I did this 19 years ago x 3. Keep saying to yourself “this too will pass”. It does eventually. And remember, you CAN do it, it won’t last forever. God Bless You.
I should have said, 19,20 and 22 years ago. So whats 4 or 5 years with no sleep!
Yes, it WILL pass. And I can second Elizabeth Pantley’s “No Cry Sleep Solution”. She has a lot of great ideas.
You mention she has a cold. You probably already know this, but babies only like to breathe through their noses. If she’s got a cold, that could very well making feedings difficult–bottle or breast, makes no difference–as well as disrupt her sleep. It could also be causing uncomfortable or even painful pressure in her ears at night. I know when I have a cold, the pressure really builds up while I’m lying down. Being upright allows things to drain a little better.
Another possible culprit with the feeding problems is reflux. Again, supine is not good. Have you tried giving her any feedings while sitting completely upright (this can be done at the breast just as easily as with the bottle)? If she is suffering some sort of reflux, keep her upright after the feeding, too. My youngest had what is called “silent reflux” where we rarely saw the classic spitting. The acidic contents would come up from her stomach while she was lying down, burning her throat and then go back down. We didn’t realize it, because we didn’t see it. She would drift peacefully off to sleep, only to wake screaming a short time later. All. Night. Long. We finally ended up putting her on a medication to control the acid in her stomach and that helped. She only needed if for a few months, then she outgrew the problem. BTW, my little one was gaining, too. Reflux does not necessarily always mean poor weight gain.
Anyway, just some more thoughts. I really hope things improve for you soon.
I was so desperate for sleep when I went back to work that I searched the internet and found a program I was comfortable with. I started when A was 5 months and he was getting himself to sleep and sleeping through the night in 4 days. Yes, she will have to cry. It will be rough but so worth it to have a rested baby and MOM in the end.
I experienced nights like that with my babies too. Indeed it is rough. . . my heart goes out to you.
If she is still doing this during the night, I would feel justified in taking her to the pediatrician the next day to see if she has an ear infection. . . especially if she has had any sort of cold symptoms. Little baby ears/sinuses get easily clogged. My babies have had ear infections where they didn’t have fevers and seemed happy during the day. . . it was laying down at night that seemed to cause problems and pressure. And it’s not like babies can say, “Hey Mom, I’ve got ear pain.” So don’t beat yourself up if you insist on a doc visit and she doesn’t have an infection. At least you can rule that out!
Breastfeeding/sucking on anything can make a baby’s ears hurt even worse too.
I did notice that the more alert that my babies became, the more likely they were to have disrupted nighttime sleep. And they needed less daytime napping.
If you talk to the pediatricians or read many books on baby sleep, you will read about that terrible witching hour (you know, starting around dinnertime and being pretty rotten until sometimes 10/11 pm?). It seems to be a normal thing, so Ruby is experiencing some of the same exact things. There might not be a thing wrong with her except she’s just all uptight at those times. (Hey, even my elementary aged kids are still uptight from dinnertime until 9 pm!)
One of the kindest, most compassionate pieces of advice I ever received from our pediatrician was this (and they were very pro-breastfeeding with a smidgeon of attachment parenting): Look, at certain ages babies seem to get grumpier. A lot of it is developmental, and parents need to be patient with the baby and themselves. Evenings can be really tough, and you’re trying everything you possibly can to make the baby happy. . . but baby won’t be happy. If you cannot ascertain that there is anything wrong with baby and you are feeling stressed, it’s safer to put the baby in his/her crib in a dimly lit room, shut the door gently, and get out of ear shot of the screaming/crying for a bit of time. Baby will be okay.
One of the hardest adjustments a new mother experiences is that her life is no longer her own, and SHE alone becomes the primary burden carrier. Even when the babies become big kids, everybody relies on Mama. It’s especially rough on stay-at-home moms. Even the Daddies depend on the Mamas to know all the answers about how to make everybody content and happy. Mothers feel the pressure and sometimes don’t realize this is what it is.
If you can swing it, take at least a couple of evenings for a few hours to yourself before you have to do the nightwatch with Ruby.
My youngest two are 2 year old twins. Luckily, they sleep through the night now (with the occasional nightmare or sick waking). But try to imagine two little newborns on two different schedules. They were preemies too, so I HAD to wake them and feed them if they didn’t wake on their own. (I breastfed them, so Daddy wasn’t much of a help. And I had three other children, ages 7, 5 and 20 months.) It was very very difficult for 8 months at least.
If Ruby is healthy and is over 3 months old, I see no reason why letting her cry it out using something like the Ferber method could hurt her.
I will say that I have a niece who screamed her head off at bedtimes from birth until she was 3 years old. Even after age 3, she would have to whimper herself to sleep. That’s just how she rolled when it came to self-soothing.
If Ruby’s not sick, then at this point, it sounds like your health, mental and physical, needs caring for so that you can be a less stressed mother. You need to allow yourself to let her cry some alone. I know it’s hard, but if that’s the route you choose to take. . . you’re not a bad mother. I can tell you really care about this little Ruby.
I don’t wish to start a sleep training debate but I have to respectively disagree with Emily that allowing a baby to cry alone will not hurt her (the baby). If mama is starting to lose it and needs to put the baby down and remove herself to get calmed again, absolutely. However, “controlled” CIO (crying it out), that is, leaving baby to cry alone even for controlled periods of time, absolutely CAN hurt the baby and mounting scientific research is bearing this out. Babies have no other means of communication when they have a need and ignoring their cries threatens the trust they have in their primary care-giver(s). This can lead to problems with breastfeeding and sleeping, among other things. CIO sleep training techniques have indeed led to *some* babies sleeping through the night but not, as many suppose, because they’ve learned to fall asleep on their but, rather, because they’ve learned that their cries will go unheeded. They give up. Some babies cope with this better than others but it’s a harsh lesson for such a tiny little person to learn. Not only that, many parents who try a CIO approach find that many things can cause them to revert to old habits again and they are forced to apply the CIO method again and sometimes many times to get “back on track”.
If that’s not enough, research has shown that CIO also has very real, damaging physical effects on baby. Babies who are left to cry alone become extremely stressed and their little bodies release high levels of stress hormones which adversely affect their brain development. Few of us can ever avoid our babies spending some time crying alone for some reason or other (on occasion, our baby monitor has not functioned properly and I’ve gone into the bedroom to find a very hysterical and angry baby) but a programme of controlled CIO alone is physically harmful to one degree or another (each child is different).
Like I said, I don’t wish to begin a debate here, but whenever a new mum complains her little one isn’t sleeping, you can bet there will be others out there suggesting she go the CIO route. To anyone considering a CIO/controlled crying programme, please, please, PLEASE do the research before you put your child through something like this. She/he deserves that, at least.
Just a few…
The Mother Baby Sleep Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame
http://www.nd.edu/~jmckenn1/lab/
http://www.askdrsears.com/html/10/handout2.asp
http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/pinky_mckay.html
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/family-and-relationships/coddle-or-let-the-kid-cry-new-research-awakens-the-sleep-training-debate/article1674049/page1/
Sorry Kristin, I really do know just what you are going through right now and I don’t mean to come down all heavy. From what I’ve read of your parenting style and the fact that you seem to be a pretty well-informed and savvy mama, I had to put my 2 cents in here because I suspect this is information you’d want to have before going the CIO route–assuming you don’t already know this. My conscience wouldn’t allow me not to say anything. I really hope you are getting some sleep though and that this is all moot. Just reading your posts brings it all back for me and it’s not something (sleep deprivation) that I’d wish on anyone!
P.S. To Emily and anyone else who has/does use CIO or controlled crying, I am not suggesting you are a bad parent for doing so. I only want to point out that we are now seeing evidence that these methods can do potential harm but we have, as yet, no evidence that they won’t do harm.
I’m not opposed to CIO for other people, because I know every parent and every baby is different, and it might work like a dream for other people. For me, for now, I don’t think it will work. I think I would be lying there awake listening to my child scream for an hour or two, and that doesn’t feel productive to me. My instinct is to respond when she cries, and I’m following my instinct. Sometimes, I really, REALLY want to lay her in the bed and run for it, but where would I run? This child is LOUD! :)
Oh honey, this is such a hard time, especially with your first. We went through this with Alex (though not so much with Abby) and I still think that he was teething. Some kids just handle being a little sick/teething better than others. She sounds like she’s got quite the personality and this means that things may be quite challenging for you for awhile. You are the best judge of the cry it out/pick her up debate. I tried it both ways and both my kids were too stubborn for me. Good luck and remember- mama knows best!
I don’t know you but my heart goes out to you. First babies are such a terrifying adventure! You don’t know whats normal and whats not, and those little angels can’t tell you whats wrong. I have had four and hope to have more and as one very wise older women once told me. “Sometimes a baby just needs a good cry.” Unfortunatly that may be in the middle of the night for you. My eldest son screamed all the time due to health problems and there were times that I felt I was going to loose it. But that time passed and now he is a gentle sweet little boy.
What worked for him was wearing him in a sling and co-sleeping with him. By the way I have co-slept and nursed all my babies and not one was smothered or even came close or fell off the bed. And no it didn’t bother my private time with my husband as we adjusted to being loving while the baby slept in a side crib kept just for that reason. I tried the whole crib idea with baby number one and found it to be a form of insanity I didn’t want to participate in. So for us it has worked out well and all our children sleep great in their own beds from age one on.
Yes I picked up every one of my babies when they cried, and no it didn’t spoil them. They are the most brave and independant children I have ever met. One thing I learned from an older mother that had nursed many babies is that expressing the fore milk a bit can help baby sleep for longer by helping them get to the hind milk which is higher in fat. It works but will increase your milk supply. For me that is a problem because I alway have way too much.
It actually sounds like your little one may have gas with the whole arching the back and screaming thing. Gas drops may help.
Hang in there and try to remember that this time when you little one is truly little is so very short. Soon she will be all grown up.
my middle child cried like that, she was allergic to milk. take her in and have her checked also hang in there it does get better. and let dad have her at night sometimes, take care.