Sleeping – Them and You…
My whole pregnancy, everyone kept saying, “Sleep now because you won’t get to once the babies come.” Boy, were they right.
The night I knew I was going in for the cesarean the next day, I didn’t sleep but maybe 3 hours. I was too excited.
In the hospital, I wanted to be the one to take care of my babies. The night nurses thought I was crazy. But I had enough of all the grandparents holding my girls. I wanted to bond too, damn it! I think Ryan felt like he needed to prove himself by never leaving my side at night. We never discussed how we’d work those nights at the hospital. I think we both just assumed we were both going to be there. So, Ryan stayed with me and we kept the babies in the room with us. It was honestly the only time we had alone with the babies until we got home from the hospital. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was our first time as a little family. Ryan attempted to sleep in the sad excuse for a reclining chair they offered. I say attempted for two reasons. First, the chair was so uncomfortable, he couldn’t fall asleep anyway. Second, he was jumping up for strange baby noises and one or the other was fussing or crying all night long. By the time dawn arrived, we were both more exhausted than when all the visitors left.
Then all the visitors came back and wanted to know how the night went. Then we had to continue visiting until the days’ visiting hours were over. This is how it went for us. In hindsight, I should have had the nurses take the babies for at least a few hours at night and bring them in when it was time to eat. The nurses offered, but I refused. I was responsible for my babies. I should have sent Ryan home to take a nap. But we were smiling and chatting with visitors. We were responsible for our babies.
My mom saw how tired I was. I couldn’t put coherent sentences together. I was slurring my words. I was tired. She ushered the visitors into a large waiting room and put a “Do Not Disturb” sign on my door. I would only allow her to let me sleep for an hour. As soon as the door was closed, I heard the voice of a neighbor that came to visit. My mom said I was sleeping. The neighbor insisted to visit with me. My mom insisted that I needed to rest and if the neighbor wanted to wash her hands and hold the babies, she was more than welcome.
Including my one hour nap, I slept a total of ten hours in four days. Adrenaline was running high at first, but was running out once we got home.
The first few nights at home are a blur. The first week was hard. Night and day didn’t matter. The am and pm didn’t exist. We fed babies, rocked babies, changed diapers and tried to sleep ourselves. I tried to nurse and pump and waited for my milk to come in.
Something that caused me much stress was thinking I had to struggle to nurse in the middle of the night. Oh, honey! What was I thinking? Until you have nursing “down” it is not easy. Give those kids a bottle. It makes the process so much easier. I figured this out after about two weeks. I could have slept so much more had we just done bottles at night to begin with. My optimal hindsight plan – make bottles, get the kids and husband back to sleep, pump and freeze, go to bed. That would have streamlined things a lot.
Another thing that caused a lot of stress the first week: Ryan doesn’t wake up easily.
One Week Old - Internet Post: “Ryan slept through most of the long hard nights. He's never been able to sleep, wake up, and then go right back to sleep. Once he's up, he's up for a while. Didn't want to bother him with helping me feed the kiddos. So it was taking me 2 1/2 hrs to get everyone changed, fed, burped and back to bed. So only 30 mins of 'rest' time for me before we started all over again. And 30 mins was IF there weren't any fussy babies. Pumping after feedings went out the window for a while cuz I was so tired. I've been at my wit's end - teary and stressed. Milk production is lacking because of no sleep. Finally I had a heart to heart and said that I've been trying to do the nights alone and let him and my fam do the days, but I just can't do it anymore. He really stepped it up last night and I give him an A for effort! If every night from now on goes as smoothly as last night, I'll be happy. When the kids woke up, he was up helping. We were back in bed in 45-55 minutes. Very nice!”
As I recall, that was the easiest night. The few days after that, Ryan slept a lot again, but he would wake up if I shouted and shoved. Many nights I’d be feeding “my” baby while watching for “his” baby’s bottle to tip. He would be laying down while holding the bottle and fall asleep. So I’d move his hand back to a good bottle feeding position. I was gentle and easy at first. As the nights wore on, I got more frustrated that I was the one who was keeping this baby feeding factory running at night. I would yank the bottle out of his hand to wake him and gently reposition it so the baby wouldn’t be sucking air. He would be conscious enough to know that he had fallen asleep and needed to reposition.
It took me three weeks to get the following system down: I hear a baby starting to fuss because it’s time to eat, I get up and change the diaper of Baby 1, I lay Baby 1 on my side of the bed next to Ryan, I go upstairs to make bottles, I come back down the stairs, Baby 1 has screamed enough in Ryan’s ear that he is now awake enough to hold a bottle, I change Baby 2’s diaper and feed her. I usually ended up burping them myself and putting them back to bed. A super quick night time feeding would be about 30 minutes. The norm was more like 45 minutes.
By a month old, Ryan had figured out that he had to sit up in bed while feeding the babies. I was glad because a lot of my frustration at night was monitoring him while feeding.
Suggestion for each parent to do one feeding on their own and let the other sleep. That way each would get 5 solid hours. Never tried it, didn’t think it would work with Ryan so tired.
Sleeping schedule is off – Make definite distinctions in day time and night time. Day time, turn lights on, sing and dance, turn the tv on. Run the vacuum. Talk in normal volume. The phone will ring, the doorbell will ring, the dog will bark. Well adjusted babies should be able to sleep through most noises. I’m not saying that my babies never startled from a loud daytime noise. I am saying, however, that tippy toeing around your babies during the day has the potential to mold your babies into finicky sleepers with fragile temperaments.
Early days sleeping. Worried about them being cold. Socks, hats, swaddled, and blanket over top. Under the ac vent, ceiling fan on. Heat rash. Poor things.
We used the same crib until the girls were almost six months old. By then, they would do plenty of wiggling and get into each others space. They started waking eachother up and I knew it was time for separate cribs. Wish I would’ve done that sooner too.
As I’ve said before, our house was a tri-level. So, we were in the basement and the nursery was on the top floor. I dreaded even the thought of moving the babies to the nursery before they were sleeping well through the night. Who wants to sleepily climb stairs in the middle of the night just to put a binkie back in or change a diaper. Neither of us did. So, we ‘suffered’ with them in our room.
By ‘suffer’, I mean that I truly didn’t appreciate how often I was waking up at night because I heard them move, I heard a squeak, I heard a sigh, I heard one sucking on a binkie. So many little things woke me up.
We tested out having the girls sleep in the same crib in the nursery, just to get used to it. All four of us needed to get used to it. The first few nights, Ryan and I got up when someone fussed. Ryan made bottles while I changed diapers. We fed them their 4 ounces and we all went back to bed. I knew the girls were big enough to be sleeping through the night, but I didn’t know how to cut out that other feeding. I wasn’t about to lose my own sleep by trying the “cry it out” method in the middle of the night. I’m sure Ryan wouldn’t have put up with that either. We started cutting the bottles down to smaller amounts. The middle of the night feed would be somewhere between 4-7am. We’d make 2 ounces instead of four. The girls adapted well. After about two weeks, we had completely cut the middle of the night feedings.
3-4 months - start a nap routine. I thought naps should be somewhere other than the crib. I wanted the girls to associate the long sleep with the crib. But just associating sleep in general with the crib turned out fine. I wish I would’ve started a nap schedule sooner. By 5 ½ months, they were sleeping one hour in the mornings and then cat napping the rest of the day. But they of course weren’t napping at the same times. I never got anything done. The dishes, laundry and other cleaning tasks piled up. After about a month of putting them down for naps at approximately the same time every day, they started to take longer naps. A miracle! Sometimes they’d sleep 2 hours. I was very impressed. I could get some things done, prepare a casserole for dinner, or take a nap myself.
To my surprise, with a more regimented schedule in the mornings for naps, they started sleeping 3 hours. I was in heaven. Again, I wished I would have started the nap schedule sooner.
My girls were good nappers early on. I didn’t ever have to wait until they got cranky before they just passed out after a bottle. Then things changed. I don’t know what, but they started staying awake longer which was expected. But the longer they were awake, the crankier they got. Duh, Mom. We need a nap. So then I had to start our nap routine.
Been up 90 mins, take a nap. Some consider a good nap to be no less than 20-30 minutes.
Been up 2 hrs, take a nap
Been up 3 hrs, take a nap
How to Deal
I wish I would have figured it out earlier. How do both you and your husband get enough sleep and take sufficient care of babies ‘round the clock? Tag team sleeping is the answer. Communication helps too.
Ryan needs to sleep through the night to be functional the next day. So I have to suck it up and do the nights and the wee-early mornings and then take a nap. When things went well, I’d wake up in the middle of the night and feed and change whoever needed it and then go back to bed. I’d then wake up with the kids in the morning and start our morning routine. Once Ryan woke up, he would eat breakfast and shower and then the kids were his. I would stumble back to bed.
Why not just stay up for the rest of the day? Easy. My job is not flipping burgers. It’s making split second, life and death decisions and keeping track of important information. My job is emergencies and screaming women and angry people calling me names. I have to be on the top of my game every single day. I have to be ready to give CPR instructions at a moment’s notice. I can’t be tired. I can’t be in a bad mood. I need sleep.
Sleeping Through the Night
At six months old, both girls slept through the night. And then, they started teething. Oy. The sleeping through the night thing didn’t happen again until about age 9 months.
Sleeping pills vs exhaustion and thinking about crying babies in the morning
Wake up - look at the clock - wonder if they’ll wake up soon.
Rice in bottles
