Sleepytime

It seems like all I do is think about sleep. It’s easy to obsess about it when you’re not getting enough.

About 10 days ago, Jonah started nursing more frequently through the night, like every 90 minutes or so, as if he was a newborn again. You’d think I could handle it, since I survived this kind of sleeplessness in the early days after Jonah was born. But, this time around, after just a few days, I was spent. And, I felt like I was going a little crazy. Or, a lot crazy, if you ask my husband.

Then, at the peak of my sleep deprivation, the Pope came to town. This complicated matters because it meant that Matthew was really busy at work photographing “Papal movements” around Washington, D.C. For several days, he was out the door very early in the morning and often home late.

To try to catch up on some sleep, I did my best to nap when Jonah napped. But, this often left me feeling as if I’d slept the day away, just when it started getting really nice outside. A few days I just gave up my chance to nap to get outside, strolling Jonah through the zoo as he slept. I watched the animals as they slept. I observed other people, studying their faces carefully, wondering how much they get to sleep. Everyone looked much more well-rested than I felt.

I’ve been trying to get Jonah to nurse better during the day so he’ll be less inclined to wake for feedings at night. But, this can be a challenge now that we are out and about a lot more. I’m totally pro-breastfeeding in public, but now that Jonah has become more aware of his surroundings, all he wants to do is look around. I don’t blame him. Pretty much everything he sees is new for him. Imagine how exciting the world would seem if you were seeing birds and trees and cars and buses and hearing all their sounds for the first time in your life!

It’s amazing to think about all the new things he is learning and the connections being made in his brain, but I have to admit it’s hard to think about all that when I’m sitting on a park bench trying to discreetly nurse him and he suddenly turns his head and flips his whole body around, exposing my breast to the whole wide world, my milk squirting all over him and me, as I struggle to hold on to a squirming and strong 16 pound baby while also covering myself up. So, we’ve been staying a bit closer to home, where I can nurse him in the rocker, in the quiet of the bedroom, with the curtains closed, the cats banished to another part of the house.

It can be hard to make plans around this sort of routine. I do my best to get Jonah out of the house every day and interact with other people as much as possible, but the fact is that for large chunks of every week it’s just me and Jonah.

A friend ask me recently, “What have you been doing?” I said, “Um, I don’t know.” At first, I couldn’t really think of what to say. In the past, I would have said something like, “Well, work is crazy busy, but I try to get to yoga or the gym a few times a week, and Matthew and I are going to the Bahamas in a couple weeks, blah, blah, blah…” I guess I could have said, “Well, I change Jonah’s diaper about 10 times a day and then I usually check his neck rolls for dried milk and I still can’t seem to get all the lint out of his belly button. Frankly, I’m worried it will stay there forever! Oh, and I had to change my shirt three times yesterday because Jonah spit up on it.” Luckily, this friend is also a stay at home mom, so she just laughed at my lame answer. Finally, I said, “Well, I sing a lot these days.”

I do get out. Thank goodness for my weekly gathering with several of the women from my birthing class. We take turns hosting the gatherings of moms and babies and we just hang out and talk. It’s the one activity that I’m usually willing to sacrifice Jonah’s nap for. I think it’s the same for the other moms, too. But, it’s because we moms desperately need that connection. The babies were born within a few weeks or months of each other and we are all first-time moms, so meeting up every week allows us to learn from each other and to feel a little less crazy.

Yesterday, all the babies were fussy about an hour into our gathering because they were ready for naps and a couple of us had trouble nursing our curious babies and had to go into a separate room to feed and calm them down. But, none of us skipped our meeting and none of us left early. It’s just that important to us to get together and since it’s only once a week no one feels that guilty about messing up their baby’s routine.

This group has helped me learn that all of us moms and babies have so much in common, but also that no two babies are the same. What works for one baby won’t necessarily work for another.

My friend Maria’s baby is sleeping through the night. She’s a little older than Jonah (no more than a month) but has been sleeping this way since she was 8 weeks old. She is fed exclusively breastmilk, just like Jonah. (I’ve heard that formula babies sleep longer because it takes babies longer to digest the formula.) As far as I can tell, Maria and her baby aren't doing anything drastically different than what we're doing, so it must just be the babies.

Jonah is napping now. He’s so beautiful when he’s asleep. I can’t believe he is real sometimes. I don’t know when I’ll get a full night’s sleep again, but I doubt it will be any time soon. I’m trying hard to not let my sleep deprivation get to me. Acceptance is a huge part of it. I got a little derailed recently and was having trouble accepting things as they were. I’m getting back on track now. This morning, Jonah woke me up with his tossing and turning. He was on the way to waking up himself, but still mostly asleep. I turned on my side and just watched him stretch his small arms over his head and arch his back a little and then just relax again into sleep, his legs frog-like and his body open and vulnerable and totally trusting of his surroundings, safe under the covers in my bed. He sighed and whined a little, like he was going to cry. I said, “Hi baby. Hi Jonah. Good morning.” He opened his eyes and looked at me, blinking and squinting. He smiled. Small at first, and a little crooked. Then, he gave me the big, wide, open-mouthed grin, the kind of smile you can see in his eyes, before shoving his fists in his mouth and squeaking and gurgling, seeming absolutely pleased to see me again. ~ Nicole