Postcards from the Back Row

When we first brought the baby home from the hospital and he wasn't sleeping well at night we didn't worry about it much.  We told ourselves, "This is just how newborns are... we just have to get through this part.  It WILL get better."

We told ourselves that for days and then weeks and then months.  It still feels like we are in a permanent state of triage.  I think it's best that we didn't know what we were in for.

Quentin is now 7 months old, and the sleep situation is decidedly not better.  Sometimes I think they might be worse.

Showers and makeup and hobbies and having a tidy-ish house still feel like luxuries.  I'm sitting next to a mountain of unfolded laundry right now writing this while the baby fusses in the swing because it feels important to get this out.

When I was in the fourth grade in Mrs. Vandergrift's class we had a daily task after lunch.  We would sit down at our desks, quietly copy down the new vocabulary word she had written on the chalkboard, copy the definition out of our dictionaries (how I loved that dictionary!), and then use the word in a sentence.

One day I could not see the word written on the chalkboard.  No matter how hard I squinted, I could not see it.  I sat at my desk with my tiny fourth grader heart fluttering in a state of near panic trying to work out what it was.  I watched each of my classmates finish up their copying and sentence composing one by one.  I prayed that someone else (someone much less shy then me) would raise their hand and tell Mrs. Vandergrift that they also could not see the word.  I had never up until that point felt so much panic. I realized everyone else could see the word just fine.  It was just me.  There was something wrong with me.

It turns out there was... I needed glasses.

This is exactly what it feels like to have a child that doesn't sleep.

At first I was part of a brotherhood of other parents of non-sleepers.  But one by one, as their sweet babies finally sleep through the night, I'm still standing here trying desperately to make out the word on the chalkboard.  The one that will tell me exactly how to get this baby to go to sleep.

It's starting to feel lonely out here.

There's a lot of information out there on the best way to get a child to sleep.  OH GOD.  So much information.  I haven't found a lot of information on the emotional toll of this situation.

People have a lot of things that they say to exhausted parents.

"He'll sleep when he's ready."

"Treasure this time you have with him.  Someday he won't want to be held."

"You're doing a great job!"

"Have you tried crying it out?" (YES EVERY DAY... Oh... you meant the baby... not me.)

Their intentions are so so so good (and every encouraging word has meant so much to me), but at some point you realize these are just the things people say to you when they don't know what else to say... like telling the grieving that they "are in my thoughts and prayers"... it's just the thing you say because that is what you say in times like this.

Have you ever repeated a word over and over again until it loses it's meaning?

One thing I know not to do is to google 'sleep'.  The internet is full of Helpful Hannahs who inevitably tell a clearly desperate very tired mother that it sounds like her baby is 'overtired'.

Sigh.

Yeah... no shit, Hannah.  I wouldn't be here asking strangers on the internet how to get my baby to go to sleep  (and stay there) if he weren't.

There are also lots of Not-so-helpful Nancys that like to tell you horrifying things about the statistics showing that lack of sleep is connected to a whole host of behavioral issues in children.

Go swallow a knife, Nancy.

I guess the point of this post (besides needing to unload and unburden) is this... if you, whomever you are, stumbled upon this in a similar state of worry and frustration and tears I just need you to know how NOT alone you are.

They keep telling us it gets better... so I guess it does??  In the meantime, it's okay to be sad and scared and feel like a failure.  But don't do it for too long because you are not failing.  You're not failing because you gave enough of a shit to google 'sleep' AGAIN even though you knew you were entering a minefield of terrible advice from people who have no idea what they are talking about, and you ended up here.

I wish I could tell you what the words on the chalkboard say... but i'm still squinting in the back row, and I'm glad to have some company.