I am, by nature, a champion sleeper. And when I say champion, I really mean it.
If given the opportunity, I can enjoy some epic, luxurious, long sleep. Or at least I could. I stopped sleeping approximately at the beginning of my second trimester of pregnancy, and I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since.
While I was pregnant, I just couldn’t get comfortable at night. Lying on one side just wasn’t for me, and besides, the babe would start his nightly high-kicks routine as soon as I settled into bed. By my final weeks of pregnancy, I was sleeping about 2 solid hours a night, with 5-6 hours of tossing and turning.
And moms, if you can believe this, I kept telling myself: “I’ll get some sleep once the baby comes. Sure, it will be interrupted, but it will at least be real sleep”. Oh how foolish the first-time mom can be. In hindsight, I can remember the few mothers of small children I said this to who simply smiled and nodded in response. I mistook their kind desire to not burst my bubble as reassurance that my delusions were true.
We are now 5 ½ months into my son’s life on the outside, and while I, of course, cannot imagine my life without him, nor would I ever want to, I am still struggling to make peace with the whole sleep deprivation thing. I mean, what becomes of a champion who cannot hone their skills?
As I was discussing this with my husband, I realized that the emotions I’ve been experiencing about sleep and lack of sleep are quite similar to the emotions associated with grief, and so I present to you: The Five Stages of Sleep Deprivation.
Denial In my case, denial started before the real sleep-deprivation even began. See my aforementioned delusional belief that I would get sleep once the baby was born. Then, once the baby was born, and I wasn’t getting any more sleep, denial dug in even deeper as I told myself this would only last “a few weeks”, and then when it lasted longer, began to tell myself “it’s not so bad”.
Anger After realizing that the sleep-deprivation is going to last, and it is also, in fact, very bad, anger shows up. Since your child is too adorable and precious and smiley and cuddly, this anger is not directed toward them.
No, the anger is directed towards the partner who appears to be getting more sleep. They look so refreshed and rested with their more-than-three-consecutive hours of sleep, while you look in the mirror and see a haggard stranger looking back.
Whether or not they are actually getting more sleep is immaterial; this must be their fault.
Bargaining The stage in which you think of all the things you’d trade for a few solid hours. For me, this included just about everything I’ve ever enjoyed including but not limited to bubble baths, good books, wine, foot massages, and cheese. I mean, I’m not a champion cheese-eater (though I might be close), I’m a champion sleeper. Anything for my craft.
Depression The sadness of sleeplessness with no end in sight. In this stage you resign yourself to the fact that you are never going to feel rested ever again. This makes you cry. A lot.
Acceptance The final stage in which you accept that the price you pay for the greatest gift of your life, your child, is a period of sleep deprivation. You realize that this is normal and that every mom who came before you has experienced this and has lived to tell the tale. It will end. You will sleep again. Your brain function will (hopefully) be restored. Everything is going to be alright.
I’m still working on the acceptance stage. Some nights are easier than others. He is still only sleeping in 3-hour stretches at most, but as the weeks go by, my tolerance for little sleep is increasing. Before children I would have told anybody who asked that I required at least 7 hours of sleep to function. Now, give me one stretch of 3 with another hour here and there, and I’m good. I might not be a champion sleeper anymore, but now I’m something much better: my baby’s mother.
I may be a tired and haggard-looking mother, but like all moms out there I’ve been endowed with the super-power ability to function on smiles and giggles and that sweet smell of baby. Oh, and also on fantasies of a dark room with a big comfy bed, bedecked in clean sheets and fluffy pillows, and 8-10 uninterrupted hours to fall into deep, sweet, beautiful, glorious sleep.
What about you moms out there? How did you cope with the sleeplessness of having a new baby in the house? When did it get better for you? And for moms of older kids, will I actually start sleeping again, or is that just another one of my delusions?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Ms V. in South Korea.
Photo credit to Daehyun Park. This photo has a creative commons attribution license.
Ms. V. (South Korea)
Ms. V returned from a 3-year stint in Seoul, South Korea and is now living in the US in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her partner, their two kids, three ferocious felines, and a dog named Avon Barksdale. She grew up all over the US, mostly along the east coast, but lived in New York City longer than anywhere else, so considers NYC “home.” Her love of travel has taken her all over the world and to all but four of the 50 states. Ms. V is contemplative and sacred activist, exploring the intersection of yoga, new monasticism, feminism and social change. She is the co-director and co-founder of Samdhana-Karana Yoga: A Healing Arts Center, a non-profit yoga studio and the spiritual director for Hab Community. While not marveling at her beautiful children, she enjoys reading, cooking, and has dreams of one day sleeping again.
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Hmmmm, not to burst your bubble (again) but…my son finally started to sleep through the night uninterrupted when he was about two. My daughter is four, and because she has asthma she rarely makes it through the whole night without waking. I’m used to it, for the most part. Those people who say their babies sleep through the night are either lying or hard of hearing, or maybe sleep-walkers, or some combination of the three. Or maybe they’re just extremely lucky!
Sleep deprivation was definitely worse the second time around because I couldn’t take a nap with the baby. Not if I didn’t want my then two-year-old to burn the house down, anyway.
As for looking haggard, those post-pregnancy hormones make you look great! I’m sure you look way better than you feel. I’m always so surprised when I got back and look at pictures because I look pretty good even though I felt like I was falling apart inside.
Eventually your child will sleep through the night, and you’ll realize that prime time TV is even worse than you remembered!
Oh – it was horrible! I was so not prepared for how tired I would feel, sure, people told me that I wouldn’t get any sleep, but I was silly enough to imagine that my love for the wee lad would be enough to get me through… I can’t function properly without my 8 hours consecutive sleep, and I would have write down at what time I woke up to feed him and so on, as when the morning came I really had no idea what I had been doing in the night.
For me it lastet until the wee lad was 4 months old – and since then he has slept through the night – and everynight I go to sleep, and every morning I wake up, I so appreciate another good nights sleep!
There is a sixth and final stage. We call it weaning. 🙂
Hi Ms. V!
My oldest didn’t start sleeping through the night until she was…3 years old. I am the worst to ask about sleep advice because I definitely need more than I get!! My almost 9 month old has been up to recently STILL walking every 4-5 hours at night. I’m currently trying to get her to go 11pm — 7am between feedings at night. We’re getting there!
When I read your post, I totally related!!! 🙂 So glad you’re writing with us!
Jen 🙂
Stages of sleep deprivation…I never thought of it that way, but so very true.
Rainbow is not sleeping through the night, and I don’t think he will any time soon. At a year he’s up every other hour (mostly), I am beyond tired.
Just so you know when you become a mom you will never have another good night’s sleep again. With a teen, pre-teen, and a toddler, I am seeing how true that it.
xo
This is super-true. I understood why sleep-deprivation is used to torture people after I had my son. You took a quasi-humorous tone with this but there were 2 nights (my hubby works nights) that I had pretty wicked thoughts because I was delirious. What got me through: I kept saying to myself “Whatever is bothering you is bothering him more. He’s just as tired and something is hurting”. That really helped me become more compassionate and less angry. He was an early teether (4 months)! I didn’t know what was bothering him!
These sleepness nights can become a dark place for moms –even those of us who are not depressed! I wish someone would have warned me that I could be a danger to my son in that state of mind. Fortunately, we got through it and I was changed forever.
He was 2 before he slept through consistently. Now he’s 4 and I’m sleeping great again!
I remember during the first few weeks after having my 1st son thinking…”Wait…people do this…people live through this….how? You mean to tell me everyone I know with kids went through these crazy times? Why didn’t anyone really tell me? I mean REALLY TELL ME?!” Of course, they probably did, but new mom doesn’t pay attention to these things or thinks “that won’t happen to me.”
Yes, it does get better…someday 😉 Everyone is different. My 1st son was a wakeful, needy sleeper until we finally moved him into a little kid loft bed around 4 years old with the understanding that mom and dad cannot tend to his every whim when he is 4 feet up in the air. He wanted this bed so badly that he agreed, and he has been a wonderful sleeper every since.
With son #2, I just couldn’t manage the sleep deprivation and take care of the kids (or myself, the house, etc.) the next day. So we actually did the cry-itout method when he was 8 months old. I wrote a post about it for World Moms Blog titled “No Longer Sleepless in Seattle.” I know not everyone is ok doing this method, and I wasn’t ok with it for my 1st son. But different things work for different kids (plus I was desparate), and crying it out worked with #2. Within a few nights he was going to bed on his own and staying asleep for the night. It’s been that way ever since, and he is now 21 months old. I get a solid 7 hours per night IF I go to bed when I should. I am my own worst enemy now with sleep, as I love to stay up to read, write, watch my favorite shows, or just chat with my husband.
Best of luck to you! I hope you are back training as a champion sleeper again soon 😉
My pediatrician gave me the best advice when my son was born. Every baby has a longer sleep cycle (of about 4-5 hours) at least once a day. If you make sure to wake him to nurse/feed him every 3 hours or so, you will naturally sleep the longer sleep at night. I did that for both of my children and it worked great! Its not 8 hours, but it is a start. Now they are 5 and 18 months, and I still don’t get full nights every night (I read this post at 3am on my iPhone while nursing, and it is now almost midnight as I type this). There are bad dreams from my son, and sometimes my daughter thinks nursing is more interesting than sleeping at strange hours of the night, but it’s not every night. I don’t think we will ever get a full nights sleep again – at least not until they have grown and moved out of the house :-).
Just make sure to take advantage of his nap times and rest yourself while you can.
Sleep tight!
There’s a reason they call the first three months of hte baby’s life the “fourth trimester.” You only THINK it’s over after you’ve given birth! The world seems out of focus, things are too loud, you drop stuff a lot…yeah, sleep deprivation will get you every time. And no baby is the same – so what worked for baby #1 didn’t work for #2 (seems so unfair, don’t you think?) All I can say is work towards those naps and keep “naptime” as a regular thing for as many years as you can manage…it’s a life-saver.
The most important thing to remember is let the house stay a mess and when the baby is sleeping, you get some sleep too.
And do eat right and try to get some exercise in-walking with the stroller is fine.
Hugs.