The Dark Side of Baby Sleep

I have been wanting to write this post for a long time. But it is very personal. I feel a bit embarrassed though I shouldn't, but I do. Also I feel like it will be a novel because there is a lot of emotions behind this post. 

When Saku was born. He cried. Babies cry. Babies cry a lot. I don't think Saku cried more than the average baby, but it sure felt a lot and I was very self conscious of it. I could hear people around me talk about the "good babies" who slept well and didn't make a fuss. I got defensive. I got defensive for my amazing baby and I got worried that I wasn't a very good mom. I read books. Troy wanted to ban those books because they made me a bit crazy. People gave me advice. I tried everything that I could think of. I was a sleep nazi and it didn't seem to give the results that were promised in all those books. It took a while for Saku to start sleeping well. But was he really that abnormal of a baby? I really don't think so. 

Eerika was born. She wanted nothing to do with us when going to sleep and she slept pretty well. No there was sleeping through the night when she was two months old. But she slept well enough. I am sure I was worried about her sleep and I am sure that I felt inadequate but I don't have a vivid recollection of it as I do with Saku.

Then Aleksi was born. It has been almost four years since we had a baby in the house. Aleksi was born and he was a sleepy baby. I had to wake him up to eat. The first few weeks seemed easy because he slept well for a newborn. Finally we had a baby who slept well. Then he was about two months old, we went to Finland and it was downhill from there. It could have been his age. It could have been all the time adjustments but that is when Aleksi stopped sleeping well. 

He was three months and he started waking up every two hours.  I was up a lot. Troy helped out a lot. 

However the problem isn't just that he woke up every two hours. Well it is the problem but the problem is what his waking up did to me. Yes, I was sleep deprived. Yes, I was exhausted. That is pretty obvious.

However, what is not obvious and known to most people how this affected me. I felt like a failure. I felt like I couldn't make my babies sleep. When I say it out loud, it sounds ridiculous. But when you feel it your soul that you are incapable of teaching your babies to sleep, it takes you into a very dark place. I felt like I had this baby who slept well and I broke him. Somehow I didn't teach them what he needed and now he was up a lot. People chatted about sleep and asked how he was doing, and I didn't have those golden answers of "oh he is sleeping so well" 

My days were spent obsessed about naps and how long they were. I would clock them on my iPhone's stop watch. I followed a schedule that promised me success. I didn't nurse him to sleep. I didn't keep him up too long. I didn't run around town doing my thing and sacrificing his nap opportunities. I felt like I was doing everything by the rules.

Except I can't make my babies cry. I mean when they whimper, I run to them. Why? I think it is because with Saku, my mind got warped and thought "if my baby cries, people won't think he is a good baby and they won't think I am a good mom". Again, ridiculous. But when you have something stuck in your head, it is there. 

So I didn't give my babies any chance to learn to self soothe. I wanted to hold these babies. I wanted to make them feel safe. That is how I know how to parent. And then after few months, you are so exhausted that you end up sobbing in your bed because you have a baby who is up a lot. You start living a fear of exhaustion. And the anxiety about being exhausted is almost worse than being exhausted. You feel like a failure because you can handle the exhaustion and just shrug it off as  "oh this will only last for a bit". 

And then one day you choose to let them cry so they can learn to sleep.  Or finally your husband says "you will have a  mental breakdown. I am very aware of the irony of the situation. You choose to let them cry, not only for your own sake, or your other kids or your husband/marriage sake, but so your sweet baby will get more than an hour or two in a row of sleep. 

 There were few nights when I did sob when I heard him cry. I felt like it was my fault that he had to be crying because I hadn't taught him how to self soothe before. And you feel alone. Because some people don't admit about their sleeping issues and some people have forgotten about them, kind of like you forget about a pain of labor, and some people simply don't have these issues. 

Tonight, he cried on and off for fifteen minutes. That might sound a lot, but it really wasn't too bad and he fell asleep. He wakes up twice to eat now instead of six plus times like he did a week ago or so. 

Each night when I put him to bed, I pray that he will cry less. I pray that I made the right decision. Each morning a happy baby boy greets me when I get him out of bed. And this little boy falls asleep quickly on his own after I feed him. There is no pacifier or shushing and patting. There is no rocking involved. He simply eats and goes back to sleep.

Lack of sleep is an obvious side effect of having babies. I waited for Aleksi for almost two years. I went through two miscarriages. I am so grateful for him each day. He is such delightful and happy baby. But it is hard when you feel like you are failing. And it is hard when it feels so hard. It is hard when you wonder if you are a bit depressed because sleep deprivation can make you more prone to depression. There were moments when I thought I could never have another baby. I wanted one, but I just felt like there is no way I could handle it. And then few days ago, I was nursing Aleksi and actually enjoying the moment in the middle of the night, and I had hope that I could feel like I am capable to have another baby. 

I write this down, so when the time comes and if this is my struggle again, I will remember that it will not always feel so dark, no pun intended, when you are up a lot at night. 

Somehow I wrote this under Troy's user name. Just to clarify. Troy isn't doing any sobbing around here:)