When I was pregnant with my son I was amazed at the advice that
was given to me. Within the advice I received from family,
friends, and complete strangers I discovered two very common
themes. The first was that my life would never be the same and
the second was to enjoy all the sleep I could get before the
baby came. Frankly, the idea of not having any sleep was much
more frightening to me then my life being completely altered.
I am a person who cannot function without a minimum of eight to
ten hours of sleep. When I was younger and had the freedom and
luxury of lying around and sleeping I could sleep for fifteen
hour sessions easily. I think that if it they offered an event
focused solely on sleeping for the Olympics I would be the
captain of the team. Unfortunately, a sport like this was not
offered and I’m afraid that the title of that event would have
been “lazy”. This is not exactly the type of gold medal that one
could have great pride in so obviously learning that I would no
longer be able to sleep terrified me.
My son was born early one morning and following my labor I
proceeded to call everyone I knew to share the good news. I took
a shower and then curled my hair and put on all my make-up for
any visitors that might stop by to see me. I was riding on an
exhilarating high and I wanted everyone to see how well I was
doing with this whole labor/mother thing. Of course a couple
hours later I was exhausted and slept the rest of the day in my
make-up and beautiful hair. I guess you could call this my brief
moment of insanity- a prelude to many more. The rest of the day
was spent marveling at how perfect my son was, counting his toes
and fingers, and holding him. It truly was a wonderful day being
able to hold him for the first time. When nighttime came I had
decided to wheel my son down to the nursery so I could enjoy a
night of rest. Many moms I had spoken to had said to really take
advantage of this amenity so that is exactly what I planned to
do. I was exhausted from the labor and primping and all I wanted
to do was sleep in perfect peace and quiet. For some reason
though the nurses kept on wheeling him back into my room,
disturbing my sleep in the middle of the night, and requesting
that I feed him. I guess these nurses did not understand that I
could not function with broken sleep. In a daze I would feed my
son and then hand him back only to curl back into bed until the
next session of feeding came two hours later.
During those first three months I read every book there was to
read on getting your child to sleep through the night. I had
friend’s who had children that at the age of two were still not
sleeping through the night and I vowed that I would never be one
of those mothers. After much research into the art of sleeping,
we decided to try the ever popular Ferber Method. Although the
method was a difficult one for us it truly seemed to be the most
effective and after one week of trying the method our son slept
through the night. I can remember the pure joy and elation I
felt and cannot begin to describe how happy I was. I’m sure many
mom’s remember waking up that first morning and feeling that
they had indulged in the most decadent pleasure known to man- a
full nights sleep.
My son
is an amazing sleeper and although we have those nights they are
less frequent then they used to be. When I see new mothers and
hear about how little sleep they get I have no idea how I ever
survived it. As a matter of fact, I think I have tried to block
this from my memory so that I can crazily do it again someday. I
hope knowing that it will end will be reassuring to all those
new mothers who are just beginning the sleep-deprived journey. I
promise that there will be a light at the end of this tunnel.
This can be one of those many milestones you look forward to,
write in their baby book, and then prevail on to the next
hurdle. It is a sort of Olympic event, a marathon stretch
without sleep and then a surprisingly sweet victory at the
finish.
