I Am Not a Genius

At almost 10 months old, Finn has finally slept through the night.  For the first time, I put him down to sleep at night and he didn't wake up again until it was time to get up in the morning.  It's the most glorious shining moment I can remember in a LONG time.

We were spoiled and naive with Zoey.  She was an awesome sleeper, by 6 weeks she slept all night.  We had a really smart strategy for getting her to sleep and it worked.  We felt like geniuses, like superheroes.  We might as well have invented electricity, we felt that accomplished.  Having your child sleep at night is one of the first mega milestones and we strutted around with our chests all puffed out that we achieved such a feat so early.  We were awesome parents and we had a brilliant child.

Did I mention that we were naive?

So along comes Finn and we used the same strategy that we did with Zoey.  We knew we may not be quite as lucky but were expecting a mostly similar outcome.  The result?  He woke up EVERY HOUR, ALL NIGHT LONG for 8 weeks straight.  If 8 weeks doesn't seem that long to you then you have clearly not had 8 weeks of only getting 30-45 minutes of sleep at a time.  To say we were exhausted is a ridiculous understatement.  I lost my friggin mind.  I started finding various odd objects in the refrigerator (car keys, hairbrushes) that apparently I put there, days went by without showers or even changes of clothing, and poor Zoey was just plunked in the middle of the floor with a pile of random stuff and told "don't do anything to warrant a trip to the ER".

But it got better.... relatively.  Around 8 weeks he started sleeping in 2-3 hour increments and this lasted another 3 months.  He was 6 months old before he ever slept for 4 hours straight.  We tried everything to get this baby to sleep, scoured the internet and read every sleep book there is.  I wanted to line up everyone from Ferber to Pantley (even Dr. Sears) and collectively punch them all in the face.  And the advice from "helpful" people poured in non-stop.  One conversation went something like this:  (cue patronizing tone) "sweetie just give him a little cereal and he'll sleep 12 hours straight".  My shrieking, crazy-eyed response:  "Oh REALLY.  Well we tried cereal and let me tell you what happened - MASSIVE INTESTINAL DISTRESS.  It actually made everything WORSE because he barfed everywhere, had explosive diarrhea, and screamed for 6 hours straight.  That is not my definition of sleeping all night so you can shove that cereal up your ass".   I stopped answering my phone and ignored my email.  I was pretty sure if I did otherwise, I would burn every bridge of a relationship I had.

And here's what's interesting.  After I stopped trying so hard to get him to sleep, gave up on hoping to read a magic solution, and tuned everyone out, I reached a sort of inner calm.  Either that or I completely went so bananas that it just didn't matter anymore.  I made peace with the fact that no matter what you do, some babies are just not programmed to sleep when everyone tells you that they "should".   We weren't geniuses with Zoey, we were LUCKY.  Granted, we did have a great strategy, but it doesn't matter how brilliant your plan is if the baby isn't on board with it.

After I reached this acceptance things became a bit easier.  I reminded myself that this too shall pass and he probably wasn't going to be sleeping like this in 10 years, so I figured there was an end in sight out there somewhere.  And so I let things run their course.  Over the next few months I continued to get up with him several times a night and mostly it was ok.  Admittedly there were some nights that I went a little nuts and woke Marty by whacking him in the face with a pillow and whisper-screaming "how can he be up AGAIN?!?".

But little by little Finn slept longer and woke less.  Then lo and behold we finally had that magical moment of all-night sleep.  It's a little hard to believe that lack of sleep became our new routine for the better part of a year and having an actual good night's sleep felt so strange.   As "zen" as I tried to get with sleep-deprivation, I totally did the Dance of Joy and a celebratory cheer after finally sleeping all night.   I don't know if this is a permanent thing or if it's just a fluke, but either way it's ok.  His sleep is steadily improving and that's good enough for me.  Time goes by so fast, I'm sure he'll be a busy teenager before I know it.  While I highly doubt I'll miss the lack of sleep right now (I'm not THAT crazy) I do want to want to embrace this stage.   They're only babies for such a short time, the sleepless nights do seem like an eternity but it really does go by in the blink of an eye.