Episode 4: Sleep Survival
IN THIS EPISODE
paula’s story
Sleep is probably one of the most volatile aspects of motherhood. Not only for parents but for babies too. But newborn sleep though…holy guacamole, that’s a fiesta I wouldn’t mind declining my RSVP to and now I know I’m not alone. Joined by Katherine, Dom and Bianca, we share our experiences about sleep in the first few months of motherhood and how we each attended this party with one eye open.
I remember nursing my daughters to sleep in my arms, their bodies getting heavier and feeling in my gut it was a good time to transfer them into their bassinet. Maya wouldn’t last 10 minutes, while Maddie was able to sleep for a couple of hours at a time. I need sleep to function and be a nice human, so if I’m already waking up every 2-3 hours to feed, I need to sleep in between. Unfortunately, my kids didn’t let me, so the only way I could get some shut-eye and avoid turning into Cruella the next day was by co-sleeping. When I say co-sleeping, it meant lying down on my side, nursing my daughter and switching sides the moment she got fussy, all…night…long. It’s pretty safe to say I was an all-you-can-drink milk buffet, 24 hours a day, for 6 months, you do the math.
katherine’s story
Katherine, a mother of two girls, starts her story by sharing that even though she has been through this phase already with Olivia (her first daughter), Sienna (her second) was the one who took them by storm. At around 3 months old, Sienna decided she didn’t want to sleep in her bassinet anymore and continue giving her parents those 2-3 hour increments of shut-eye. Those sleep increments decreased to about 45min-1hour and Katherine tells us how this affected her and her family physically and especially mentally.
“newborn months to me are survival mode, whatever it takes to get by day by day, minute by minute…”
Having been through this once before, she goes on by explaining how maddening it was to not be able to keep Sienna asleep after nursing her and putting her back in her bassinet. It worked so well with Olivia where she would fall asleep at the breast and get transferred into her bassinet, giving her parents 3-4 hour increments of sleep a night.
“There was tons of guilt, why is this not working, what am i doing wrong?”
Being someone who finds comfort in guidelines, Katherine decided after a month and a half of troubleshooting in desperation that the goal was to re-regulate and start sleep training Sienna at 4 months, which wasn’t an easy decision. She mentions that she is so grateful for sleep training because once it was completed, Sienna was sleeping her nights and they were finally introduced to the happy, well-rested little girl they brought into this world by giving her the gift of sleep.
dom’s story
Unlike Katherine, Dom had a very different experience with her two little boys. She bought all the parenting books but didn’t follow any of them, it was too much pressure. She just did what felt right to her. Her story is almost the complete opposite of Katherine’s as it was with her firstborn, Christian, that she had trouble keeping in his bassinet. Much like myself, Dom would nurse him to sleep and as soon as he was out, she would try and transfer him to his bassinet. But as soon as she put him down...BAM! Party time.
“the transfer!!! he would wake up a at the transfer and i remember going back into the chair with him thinking, nooo…”
Dom decided that this was no longer sustainable and finally put Christian between her and her husband in their bed. As many husbands do, he thought he would squash him but Dom reassured him that there would be barriers around him in the bed. Whenever he would start to cry it was easier for her to either nurse him or put her hand on his chest to calm him down and put him back to sleep. With Theodore (her second), while having a toddler running in the room all night, Dom decided to put him in his crib where he surprisingly slept with no issues. Funny enough, she thought: “Am I robbing him of that co-sleeping experience?” Furthermore, she adds, to one of Katherine’s previous points, you can never spoil a baby, they need to be close to their mothers, so co-sleeping with Christian was not something she was worried about.
bianca’s story
Bianca’s experience was similar to Dom's and mine as sleep survival for her meant co-sleeping in HER bed. Her husband kindly exiled himself to the guest room where he could get some uninterrupted sleep. She goes on by explaining that co-sleeping with her boys never had a deadline and before she got pregnant she promised she wouldn’t set expectations for herself and just take things as they came. Bianca reassures us that she was tired, but she never felt that internal struggle as she decided to be gentle and kind to herself by not putting any pressure or timelines on her sleeping arrangements.
“i took it moment by moment, and didn’t put any pressure on myself…”
Bianca really enjoyed the skin-to-skin and the proximity to her boys and she believed that co-sleeping created this undeniable connection with her children. This lasted for about a year for each boy and then she slowly started putting them in their crib, on and off. The mom of two tells us that she would try and put them in their bassinet next to her bed, and sometimes it would work and sometimes it wouldn’t, and the times it didn’t, she would accept it and just bring them in her bed.