Sleep, it's complicated

I hate that feeling of ”is he sleeping or did the worst thing ever happen?”.  We stopped leaving the baby monitor on at night when he was around a year old but we still have it hooked up in his room with units in our bedroom and kitchen. I will grope for the unit in the dark and turn it on, holding it close to my ear waiting for any sounds of breathing or snoring.  Hearing him sleep is the best sound ever.  It is a reassurance of life and peace.

Now that he is older, the fear of SIDS has gone away along with some of my irrational fears.  I remember those nights of “should I go in and check on him or will that wake him up?” and some nights they make a comeback.  I hate that feeling of that the house is way too quite. I can remember going into his room and practically putting my face on his chest to ensure it was still moving up and down at a healthy pace.

If I do hear Orion cry out, cough, or make any other unusual sound in the night it causes me physical pain. I hear it and almost shit myself with worry. The bottom drops out of my stomach and I am on my feet ready for action. This is why I had to shut off the baby monitor, to prevent myself from running to his bedside anytime he made the smallest sound. Granted, the worry has been replaced a bit with a fear of losing sleep.  If he is crying and I hear I cannot sleep, we are not cry it our people. I just want to make it stop as quickly as possible so I can go back to sleep. 

I am way more excited to see my baby after we both enjoy a full night of sleep. Many nights I have gone to bed at 8 or 9 because I know he will be up at some point in the night like he was the night before or because I am just plain exhausted.  Some of those nights end with me waking up at 4am to take a slash only to be unable to fallback asleep.  Regardless of how tired I am, I have always had a hard time falling asleep and falling back asleep.  There are nights when I jealously listen to the sound of my husband and baby snoring happily and soundly.  Patrick has the ability to fall asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.  He has even fallen asleep while talking or reading me a bedtime story. (Before Orion came along he used to read me bedtime stories. He read me all the Harry Potter books, Snow Crash, and The Once and Future King to name a few) 

It is rare that I am out of bed before Orion.  He usually wakes up between 6 and 7am.  That is when decent human beings should wake up.  4am is for farmers, 5am is cruel, and sleeping in past 10 is for stoners and teenage boys.  The worst is when Orion wakes up at 4am. He is not a farmer and has no business being up that early.  The chance of getting him back to bed is slim but I will try in the hopes of catching some more zzzzs. If he is truly up I know that a 7am naptime is possible and I have to decide to drink coffee and not be able to sleep during that nap but be awake now of stay sleep and miserable until we both get our nap.    

When I am out of bed before baby boy I get filled with this feeling of excitement at seeing him for the first time. He somehow looks cuter and acts sweeter.  My stomach gets filled with the fuzzy buzz of glee that he slept all night and I am recharged and ready for the day ahead.  I want to scoop him up in my arms while he tells me all about his dreams in his secret language.     

Some mornings when I am up before him I know that it will not last long.  I will think “OK, I heard snoring, he is sleeping but he will wake up any second now so I can't really get anything started”.  I don’t want to fold that laundry because he will wake up and throw it all on the floor. I can’t take a shower because he will wake up as soon as the shampoo touches my hair. The great thing is that I actually don’t need to do anything.  This can be a hard thing for a mom to realize and actually do because there are always a million things that need to be done. The luxury of enjoying a hot cup of coffee alone while checking the Facebook without a baby on the loose is an indulgence.  Sometimes you need to do nothing and you will be better for it.

If anyone out there is thinking about becoming a parent but are unsure here is a little trail you can set for yourself.  Set an alarm clock to go off every 2 hours between 7pm and 7am. Once it goes off pace up and down your bedroom or hallway while holding and rocking a 10lb bag of sugar (or whatever) for 20 minutes.  Repeat this for at least 6 weeks and see how you feel.  Bonus points if you repeat this trail 9 months later. Having a newborn is hard but then you start sleeping through the night and you return to the joys of a full night’s sleep and think the worst is behind you.  Then out of nowhere, BAM! Baby is up 2, 3, 4 times a night.  It’s like they want to remind you of how far they have come, and how much it used to suck, and aren’t you glad that doesn’t happen every night.  Really baby, you do not need to remind me.  

Nursing a toddler: the good, the bad, and the ugly

Orion will be 21 months old next week and he still nurses like an infant, but only in all the annoying ways. We nurse when he wakes up, then before breakfast, and after breakfast, before lunch, during his nap, after nap, pre-dinner and then to fall asleep at night.   He won’t nurse long enough for me to enjoy an entire episode of Ellen or any of the other million shows taking up space on my DVR.   Then there are the really quick nursing sessions that are pointless.  It’s like he does to just prove that he can or he needs to touch home base but it only counts if it is boob to mouth.

The worst part is that he has refused to nurse on my right side for months leaving good old lefty with all the action.  This means lefty is a heavyweight while no milk righty is back down to her pre-fighting weight.  You would think he would be done with my right nipple but oh no it is now a toy. Righty is now a plaything for him to poke, pinch, and twist while he nurses on the good boob. This really drives me insane. I have to remind myself to keep righty covered which can be hard to remember when a crying baby wakes you in the middle of the night and you find sleeping in clothes strange.  

Nursing a toddler is not comfortable.  He loves to slap my face or drum on my boob while my nipple is in his mouth.  Somehow he can still manage to put if his in my face.  At his 18 month checkup he was 32.5 inches long and 25 lbs. and 13ozs. Go grab something with those measurements and try holding it to your nipple for 20 minutes, bonus points if it is squirmy.  Orion doesn't seem to notice that he has gotten any bigger so he tries to nurse in the same positions he did when he was an infant not realizing that me and my nipple cannot contort into those position any longer.

And the teeth, so many teeth! He loves to drag his teeth along my nipple before he lets go. He does on occasion bite and we did go through a very bitey phase but for the most part he just has a lazy dismount.

So why do I still do it? For one, I do not know how not to nurse. I do not know how to refuse my baby (I know he isn’t a baby anymore but he will always be my baby) something he wants and that I can provide that gives him such wonderful nourishment and comfort.  If he doesn't get it he will pull at my shirt and has stretched out a few of my necklines.  And because this is what we have always done and I still hold on to the delusion that one day he won’t want it anymore.

If he wakes in the night I can (usually) nurse him back to sleep in no time with less physical effort than standing, holding him, and rocking him to sleep for a half hour.   If he is sick, nursing will provide him comfort and good antibodies. If he falls I can whip out a boob and wipe those tears away!  It is awesome to see his happy sleep face nestled against my breast.  But these are on our good days which are becoming less and less.

I want him to want me for me and not what my breasts can provide. My arms can comfort him just as well as my breasts. I can wipe those tears away with kisses and keep my shirt on.  I want to be a weaner.  If he was nursing on both sides or only nursing 3 times a day or if I could leave the house wearing a real bra, a dress, or shirts that do not have easy access to my nipples, maybe I would continue nursing. But our current situation is just too much for me to handle.  Sometimes I find nursing stressful because I am sore and neither of us can get comfortable.  At night when I try to nurse him back to sleep, it can take way longer than I would like and it can make me feel a bit angry.  Since I have the boobs and Orion associates them with sleep, it is me that he wants when it is time to sleep or when he wakes up in the night.  It would be great if Dad could put him to sleep/get him to nap/get him back to sleep. 

    

I also do not want to force or rush our nursing relationship to an end. So I try to keep us busy and out of the house as much as we can during a Mid-Atlantic winter. Last week when we went to the indoor playground he did not want to nurse at any time but he did go over to the highchairs to tell me that he was ready for a snack.   I try to distract him, if he wants to nurse I will offer him a sippy cup, a snack, story time, or some other activity.  This can make him mad and end in tears with a boob in the mouth.  When I try to delay nursing it will usually frustrate him as well.  Baby just doesn't seem to have much concept of time.  I guess I need to get him a baby wristwatch.

I have always nursed on demand and starting around 11 months went the “don’t offer, don’t refuse” route.  I don’t even understand how “don’t offer, don’t refuse” is even a method for weaning.  It has not changed anything. Orion has always nursed so much that it can be hard to keep track.  The first 6 weeks he was home I timed and noted every nursing session and which side he nursed.  I guess it is time to start making these notes and then systemically start refusing a few nursing sessions. 

  

This past Friday I had a doctor’s appointment and it felt so good to leave the house wearing a real bra, earrings, and a necklace. I was even joking with the phlebotomist that I was just happy to be out of the house.  My body has not been my own for about 30 months, that is 2 ½ years. I would like to have my body back because I am oh so selfish. I need a month or two to have my body be mine if I am ever going to get pregnant again. I know some people say that getting pregnant helped them wean but I worry that it wouldn't work for us, being pregnant and nursing would exhaust me, and that Orion would resent the new baby for taking what was his.

I am still hoping that one day soon he just will not want to nurse. Maybe I can give him chocolate milk like in Desperate Housewives and he will only want that instead of nursing. Legend has it that when I was nursing I was all business, often to the disappointment of my engorged mother.  I did not hang out on the boob, I was 3 chugs then off. (I also loved being my crib so I was just the coolest baby ever) Around 9 months I rejected the boob like it was something disgusting and that was the end of that.  Funny that my guy is such a booby monster, I guess this is just the first of many ways that my baby will be drastically different from me.

I have been waiting to change up our routine, when we nurse and how we sleep.  I have used excuses like he is sick or he is teething.   I keep saying that next week we will really work on this nap nursing situation but next week never comes. I worry that I have ruined Orion and spoiled him with my boobs.  Then I see him playing with other kids and he is happy and kind. He shares well and isn't possessive of me or his toys. He is a toddler so there are times when he does not want to share whatever he is playing with at the moment but this is a kid who will have 2 cars in his hand and will give me one so I can play with him.   He does not cling to my legs when we are in a group setting and will often go off on his own to play happy as a clam. 

There is a part of me that wants to go on vacation alone for 2 weeks in the hopes that I will come back to a happy weaned baby who sleeps independently and through the night.  Or maybe I could put him in daycare for a month and they would work their magic and solve my problems.  What I really want is more me time, an hour to myself in the middle of the day while he naps seems like such a luxury.  I also want my time with my son to be because he wants me and not my milk. 

I know I will have to work hard to change this relationship and it will not be easy.  Change has started, I now nurse him to bed at night in his room instead of our bed.  If he wakes at night I nurse him in his room and not in our bed. But I still nurse him for naps in our room so maybe today I will change this and nurse him to sleep in his room and hopefully he will stay asleep when I remove him from the breast and put him in his crib. (He has only ever napped in his crib a handful of times) I also need to put an end to napping in the car. These two changes will start today and hopefully bring us a few gentle steps closer to the end of nursing. (Update: today he feel asleep unexpectedly on the boob an hour before his usual naptime)  

That's Bananas!

Maybe it is too early to say for sure but I may have a secret weapon in the getting baby to sleep arsenal.  I am convinced that bananas have been helping Orion to fall asleep and stay asleep at night.  For the past week and a half, he has slept through the night.  There was one night when he woke up around 10 pm, but that was also the day we ran out of bananas.  Bananas are an excellent source of potassium and magnesium, but also L-tryptophan which is converted into melatonin and serotonin.  These last two are really great for sleep and “people consider bananas one of the most important sleep foods”.

I try to have dinner between 6 and 7.  While we eat, the baby eats.  I will usually give him little pieces of whatever we are eating or spoon feed him some yogurt.  We have all been enjoying beef stew the past few days.  He likes to suck on the meaty bits, it is so friggin’ cute.  I make sure he has a good amount to eat because I know he will be dropping a few bits for the dogs to enjoy.  He is so nice to share his dinner with his furry friends.

Once Orion is done eating his dinner, I bring out dessert.  His eyes get all big and excited when he sees the banana.  He did not even like bananas until recently but now he loves them!  I will peel the banana and let him take bites.  He tries to take huge bites and put the whole thing in his mouth.  Sometimes he will grab the banana with both hands in the hopes of getting more into his mouth.

At this point, our dogs are freaking out and crying because they too want some banana.  Orion will usually drop some for them or give up a small chunk for me to split between the dogs.  Orion will eat about ¾ of the banana on his own.  Then we clean him up and put him in his jammies.  He will have a bit of play time before bed in the hopes of getting rid of all his excess energy.  I think the banana gives him a little energy boost because he can get a little silly.  He crawls around, chases the dogs, bangs on the ottoman, and plays. 

Once it is bedtime, I will take him into the bedroom with the lights off and no distractions.  I will nurse him up and make sure his belly is full.  Last night, he totally spit up on me for the first time in ages.  I guess he was stuffed and just needed to go to bed.  I was exhausted from our big day out so I took him to his bedroom and laid him down in his crib.  I turned on his soothing seahorse, which he never showed much interest in until that very moment.

I left the room and told my husband I was going to bed.  So what if it was barely after 8 pm, I was beat!  I let husband know I would be turning off the baby monitor (which is kept on the lowest volume level) and to turn it back on once he comes to bed.  Orion was still awake and I hoped he would just fall asleep.  I lay in bed with a bit of worry in my belly that Orion would not be able to fall asleep and both my men would experience some torture.

That was not the case!  For the first time ever, my husband successfully put the baby to bed.  He had to rock Orion for about 20 minutes but then he was asleep and stayed asleep through the night.  There was no fussing, no tears.  Orion woke up at bit after 6 this morning and Patrick (my husband) got him up and took him into the living room.  I tried to sleep more but was awake, so I got out of bed and walked into the living room.   Once Orion saw me, he got excited and crawled over with such quickness.  He climbed up on my legs and was reaching up for me which meant he wanted to nurse.  We nursed for a bit and then he was happy to play. 

It has taken close to a year to get where we are.   I feel like a whole new world is opening up.  I am excited because Orion is depending on me less and less which means I may be able to go out and have a bit of fun or even have a little weekend away.  Then there is a part of me that is going to miss our time together.  He nurses less and less these days.  Our relationship is changing and sometimes change is difficult to handle.  I guess I need to get used to it because as soon as a baby is born, he starts to grow up.  I look back on this first year and I am glad we had every moment together even when I was frustrated or tired and just wanted sleep.  I also look forward to what lies ahead, I hope there will be bedtime stories and snuggles.  

Why can't you sleep like a baby!?

Orion started sleeping through the night when he was six weeks old. I think we got lucky and I really can’t explain why. I do not have any secrets for sleeping newborns, sorry to disappoint you. I can only share my experiences. Luck was not always on our side when it came to the matter of sleep so do not be jealous. One tip I can share is to understand the sleeping patterns of newborns.

We had a bassinet in our bedroom next to my side of the bed until Orion outgrew it at 3 months old. Then he was sleeping in his own room across the hall from our bedroom in his very own crib. I love that our baby monitor will give the room temperature. I like his room to be about 70° with the ceiling fan on low. We never used crib bumpers, pillows, or blankets in the crib. We also did not leave toys in the crib as they can be a suffocation risk or cause injury if the baby were to fall.

If we did use blankets in the crib, he was swaddle up in the blanket nice and snug. Swaddling is a wonderful thing and there are many blankets and sleep sacks on the market. I think swaddling does help newborns to feel safe and stay asleep while providing needed warmth. The blankets were great when Orion was really small. As he got bigger, I loved using the Halo sleep sacks with swaddle arms until he was able to roll over. I was worried that he would not be able to sleep without swaddling but he slept well at night once we had to discontinue swaddling. We still use a Halo sleep sack but without the swaddle arms. With a sleep sack, you can be sure the blanket stays put without worry of suffocation or uncovered feet.

Sadly, we have never had much luck with naps. This is something we are working on and I look forward to being able to get things done while he naps. During the day, he will fall asleep while nursing and wake up when I try to put him in his crib. Yes, he passes the dead arm test every time. I am doing the same thing I do at night but it doesn’t seem to work. If we are out and about and he falls asleep in the carseat, I can bring him inside and get him to stay asleep in the carseat. I am not looking forward to upgrading to the next size car seat which I will not be able to carry into the house. We bought the new carseat weeks ago but I have been putting off its installation. Orion is about 21 lbs. now and his current carseat will fit till he is 30 lbs. so I might put the switch off till he hits 30 lbs.


This picture was taken Christmas Eve, we took a car ride to look at Christmas lights and Orion fell asleep.

I was amazed when I saw a friend put her 5 month old down for a nap on my leather ottoman. She just spread out a blanket, put him on his back, rubbed his belly, and after a bit of fussing was out for about 30 minutes. Why can’t I do that? We sat there and talked while he happily slept. I really want to be able to put Orion down for a nap and think I may have to wait until we are able to have a conversation regarding the matter. When he falls asleep on me during the day I have to ask myself if I would rather be holding a sleeping baby or try to put him down in his crib and risk waking him up.

Lack of sleep and exhaustion can do crazy things to a person. One sleepless night, I was up nursing a 9 ½ month old Orion and reading blogs and trolling the internet for sleep advice. I started to worry that I may have broken the baby. He used to sleep so very well but suddenly he would wake up every few hours. He will soon be 10 months old, is he stuck with his old bad habits. Is he an old dog that cannot learn new tricks? Will I be holding him at naptime when he is 5 years old?

Could it be sleep regression? What is sleep regression? There is 4 month, 6 month, 9 month, 12/13 month, 18 month and 24 month sleep regression! I think it is just a nice term for a chunk of time when baby goes crazy and does not sleep well. This might be due to physical milestones, cognitive developments, or teething. People like things to have labels and it lets them know that they are not the only one dealing with a fussy baby who suddenly won’t sleep. Moxie can tell you more about sleep regression.

The phrase “sleep like a baby” is very misleading. I think it has fooled many parents into thinking that there is something wrong with their baby. I was also misled when I was told babies sleep 20 hours a day. Now "they" say a one month old baby needs 16 hours of sleep within a 24 hour period. Orion seemed to nurse more than he slept in his first weeks. But he was never awake and fussy, any lack of sleep he may have now or in the past never caused an adverse reaction.

Babies go through phases and their patterns are constantly changing. Just when you think you have something down, it will totally change. I think you have to be flexible and patient as a parent. I understand there will be some sleepless nights. I am thankful and lucky that I do not have to go clock in somewhere during the day. If we have a rough night, we might be able to catch a nap together during the day. I may not have a "job" but I work 24 hours a day and am always on call. Orion is my boss.

I have yet to have a night away from my baby. I think the longest I have been away from Orion was for about 5 hours when a girlfriend and I did a ghost tour of Harper’s Ferry one very cold windy night. That was the only night my husband has put the baby to bed. It didn’t go so well but eventually patrick got Orion to go down but he woke up about 45 minutes later. I do look forward to some more me time but I have had about 30 years of me time leading up to Orion’s conception. My time will come but for now he needs me and I need him to be a happy healthy baby.



Orion and Squeeky are both sleeping on me and I cannot believe that smile on Orion's face. This was the best cuddle puddle ever!