These are soft days. Tender days. Days of aching arms and backs and hearts. Aching days followed by restless nights.
Today is the full moon, partially eclipsed, and our daughter has not been sleeping well. I write this now at 3:30am, awake after having fallen asleep with her at 8pm. The last few days have been very rough. She started crawling last week, has been amped all day and night ever since. She probably is aching at night as well: I can see all that baby fat turning to muscle, and her falls are surely bruising.
For some reason this sleepless stretch has coincided with both of us fasting for 2 weeks from sugar, alcohol and coffee. Without our crutches, we find ourselves hobbling about.
I had always been struck by the term that parents use, saying I’m going to put the baby down, which always sounded a bit mobster to me—why wouldn’t you simply say I’m going to put the baby to sleep? Now I understand: it is often a long, elaborate and delicate dance to physically put a baby down, since all they want is to be held, and they cry the moment they are put down, unless you observe a strict adherence to the putting down ritual. It seems our baby doesn’t want to go to sleep at all some days, seemingly grieving the end of each day. It often feels like we have to trick her into slipping into the dreamworld, essentially hypnotizing her with song, rocking, bouncing and shushing.
Capitalism clearly is to blame for our sleep problems! Seriously: we both work full time jobs (and must if we want to remain living in this beautiful area and beloved community), and so need to conform our baby’s sleep schedule to the workday. And gone are the countless millennia in which humans lived with many children and multiple generations, when babies would sleep in a room with multiple children or grandparents, and so be soothed by their presence if not their arms.
We have been questioning our methods lately. The modern answer to our problem: sleep training (or teaching, or whatever you want to call it). We are considering this, though still not convinced. We tried gentle “no-cry” methods of encouraging her to sleep on her own in earlier months, and no dice. It’s a controversial topic, and though I have reviewed the research and don’t think it’s inhumane as many do, I am also not sure if it will be any easier than our current situation. We share a bed (safely), and with this method have generally been sleeping quite well, with feedings happening side-lying and so barely waking anyone. We are quite reluctant to risk endangering this sweet set-up. Plus, we know sleep training is not a one-and-done deal, it must be re-done whenever a developmental milestone occurs, or you travel, or…
Tonight I am trying what almost all our ancestors did: I fell sleep with baby (oh bliss!), then woke up at the middle-of-the-night feeding/changing, and am now spending some time in quiet activity. Soon I will be off for my second sleep, which will last till dawn—fingers crossed.
Today is the full moon, partially eclipsed, and our daughter has not been sleeping well. I write this now at 3:30am, awake after having fallen asleep with her at 8pm. The last few days have been very rough. She started crawling last week, has been amped all day and night ever since. She probably is aching at night as well: I can see all that baby fat turning to muscle, and her falls are surely bruising.
For some reason this sleepless stretch has coincided with both of us fasting for 2 weeks from sugar, alcohol and coffee. Without our crutches, we find ourselves hobbling about.
I had always been struck by the term that parents use, saying I’m going to put the baby down, which always sounded a bit mobster to me—why wouldn’t you simply say I’m going to put the baby to sleep? Now I understand: it is often a long, elaborate and delicate dance to physically put a baby down, since all they want is to be held, and they cry the moment they are put down, unless you observe a strict adherence to the putting down ritual. It seems our baby doesn’t want to go to sleep at all some days, seemingly grieving the end of each day. It often feels like we have to trick her into slipping into the dreamworld, essentially hypnotizing her with song, rocking, bouncing and shushing.
Capitalism clearly is to blame for our sleep problems! Seriously: we both work full time jobs (and must if we want to remain living in this beautiful area and beloved community), and so need to conform our baby’s sleep schedule to the workday. And gone are the countless millennia in which humans lived with many children and multiple generations, when babies would sleep in a room with multiple children or grandparents, and so be soothed by their presence if not their arms.
We have been questioning our methods lately. The modern answer to our problem: sleep training (or teaching, or whatever you want to call it). We are considering this, though still not convinced. We tried gentle “no-cry” methods of encouraging her to sleep on her own in earlier months, and no dice. It’s a controversial topic, and though I have reviewed the research and don’t think it’s inhumane as many do, I am also not sure if it will be any easier than our current situation. We share a bed (safely), and with this method have generally been sleeping quite well, with feedings happening side-lying and so barely waking anyone. We are quite reluctant to risk endangering this sweet set-up. Plus, we know sleep training is not a one-and-done deal, it must be re-done whenever a developmental milestone occurs, or you travel, or…
Tonight I am trying what almost all our ancestors did: I fell sleep with baby (oh bliss!), then woke up at the middle-of-the-night feeding/changing, and am now spending some time in quiet activity. Soon I will be off for my second sleep, which will last till dawn—fingers crossed.
