What is Sleep?

This is how my mom left us when Will was 5 days old.

I've always been the kind of person who didn't need very much sleep. As a one year old, my mom quit giving me naps because if I took one, I wouldn't go to bed until 11. It's one of those characteristics that I've always had that I thought would be a blessing when the time came for me to have babies because I knew I wouldn't get very much sleep. And it has. I've been grateful that my body does okay without a lot of sleep. What I didn't fully grasp is the complete exhaustion that occurs when you have a baby.

This picture is one of the most genuine ones
I have of those early weeks with Will. Every
time I see it I cringe at the complete exhaustion
evidenced in my face, but this was my reality.

For the first few months of William's life, I didn't ever know what time it was. I slept when I could. While Ty was on paternity leave we kept crazy hours. Often we'd be awake in the middle of the night and sleep through the day. It mostly worked because we could take turns and just do what had to be done in order to get some rest. It got harder after Ty went back to work, and like every other new mom in the world, some nights were harder than others, but this is me. Before I got pregnant, 4 or 5 hours of sleep was enough to sustain me through the day. Pregnancy made it harder because I was so fatigued, but after Will was born I didn't feel like I needed as much sleep.

Then all of a sudden, every couple of weeks, I would just hit the wall and be so exhausted I would feel like I needed to sleep for three days straight just to function. What I learned most acutely was that functioning on few hours of sleep is different than waking up every hour for 10 hours. Never entering REM sleep is no joke. It was brutal, but just when I thought I would die from constant sleep deprivation, Will started sleeping pretty well. After that, he had a sleep regression, and today I've resigned myself to the reality that he is not a good sleeper.

I was always so relieved when I got Will to
sleep. I sent pictures like this to Ty at work a
lot because I knew he could appreciate them.

I don't know why Will doesn't nap or sleep well, but I do know that when people talk about newborns sleeping all the time, it doesn't apply to my baby. From the time he was born to the present, Will consistently has taken naps that only last 30-45 minutes at a time. It's our normal, but it's been hard to get used to. People always tell you to sleep when the baby sleeps, but when your baby only sleeps for short bursts of time, it's really hard to do that. In fact, trying to sleep while Will slept only made me resentful. I would put him down and by the time I had gone to the bathroom, taken a drink, and settled into bed to try to sleep, he would be awake again.

This summer has marked an interesting change in Will's sleep patterns. He'd be doing okay, and then we'd go to a family reunion and his whole schedule would deteriorate. We'd figure it out when we got home, and then we would have to leave again. One time he got an ear infection. Through the last weeks of summer, he was finally sleeping okay at night, but then I went back to school, and his sleep regressed again.

The sleep battle was never fought alone.

Being the only child right now means he gets a lot of cuddles when Ty and I are around. I think that with us both in school again, Will just misses all the connection. When he wakes up at night, he usually just needs a snuggle. Sometimes he wants to nurse, but a lot of the time I just rub his back or rock him and he settles down. Ty and I have even coslept with him a few times because he sleeps so much better with at least one of us next to him to reassure him when he wakes up.

I know it's normal for babies to wake up periodically through the night. I just didn't fully comprehend the scope of the amount of energy that goes into taking care of an infant night and day for weeks and months on end. I've spent hours googling how to help my baby sleep better, and basically what I've learned is that some babies just don't sleep very well, and this hopefully won't last forever. We've tried different sleep training methods. We have a solid bedtime routine. We use white noise and a humidifier. While each of these things has helped to varying degrees, Will just isn't a great sleeper, and neither was I. (I even apologized to my mom for that recently).

I love my sweet baby, and I've spent a lot of time holding him so he gets decent sleep. Ty even bought an amazing rocking chair that I've spent countless hours in as I've soothed and fed and read to and sung to our baby. It's pretty comfy for me to sleep in, so it works pretty well in moments of desperation. I just wish someone had honestly told me that on top of adjusting to being a new mom, there's always a possibility that your wonderful, sweet new baby won't sleep well and no amount of sleep training will help. Then maybe I wouldn't feel so alone in this struggle. I know this stage of sleep deprivation won't last forever, so for now I'll just try to remember that and enjoy the extra snuggles.

Mimi holds him for naps a lot when she's around.
I think it's one of the reasons why Will loves her so much.