Ruminations on Parenthood
I lost my momentum on the “How to Sleep Like a Baby” series when sleep turned into a problem for me again. It takes some chutzpah to post sleep advice when you’ve still got only one kid and (God willing) many more years of childrearing for things to go wrong in. It’s probably clear from …
Continue reading “I’m not tired, I’m just tired of you (Sleep Like A Baby #5)”
Sometimes I make a bargain with my life: I won’t be happy unless I’m happy with our workload distribution, with my day-to-day opportunities, with how I got here, with my level of control. As if I could only allow myself to be happy when I look out and judge everything good. As if I were …
Continue reading “Bargaining With Happiness: The Suck Stops Here”
Given how standard it is to ask about a baby’s first word, it’s ridiculously complicated to figure out. One time when she was a couple weeks old, Rebecca was sleeping in my lap when I heard a very small voice, very clearly say “Help!” I looked around the room, half expecting a fairy or gnome, …
I’ve been writing a post about language since January. It keeps changing and getting bigger as Rebecca does, so I decided I’d better break it up. It surprises me, words aren’t as important to me as I thought they were. Over the last year or so, I’ve become more sensitive to the tone of voice …
Continue reading “The Background Drumming (Just Like Magic, Part One)”
Okay, maybe you’ve embraced the possibility of getting a good night’s sleep despite the interruptions and maybe you’re waking up in sync with your baby, but what if you keep finding yourself awake long after your baby goes back down?
We’re lying on our backs on the dining room table on a new clear day of the New Year, watching the reflection of puddles on the ceiling.
Sleep’s cyclical nature means there are also times throughout the night when you’re sleeping more lightly and are easier to waken. How can you increase the likelihood that your sleep cycles will mesh with your baby’s?
Parents don’t discuss their own sleep patterns in sleep deprivation posts because we as a culture take it for granted that interrupted sleep sucks, so no one feels the need to explain what’s bad about it. From there, the burden of fixing parental sleep shifts to getting rid of the interruptions. But this approach to interrupted sleep is relatively new in human history, and it isn’t the only way to deal with the problem.
I see a lot of sleep deprivation on baby discussion boards: “Help! My LO wakes up every two hours, and I’m beyond exhausted. What can I do to get her to sleep longer?” “Hey, my baby does that, too,” I think. The week I started writing this she was up every hour and a half or more. However, I’m well rested most of the time. What’s the difference between me and the crazy tired parents? I suspect part of it may be our sleep practices.
I have a friend whose baby is nine months older than Rebecca, and recently she and her husband decided to do a romantic getaway before their next baby comes. That sounds nice, I said, whenever she mentioned it. Was I really oblivious that she was nervous about leaving her daughter? I really was. Despite having been a stay-at-home parent for over a year now and having read a lot about other mothers’ experiences, I apparently still haven’t gotten it through my head that leaving your baby can be hard to do, even when your baby is more like a toddler and even when you’ve got someone you trust and who isn’t unduly put out to look after her. Lots of people leave their babies every day, so how bad can it be?