I know, I know, way to state the obvious. It's not like I didn't know this, but no amount of reading books and hearing horror stories from everyone and their mother can prepare you for how truly awful it can be. I love my daughter more than I ever thought could be possible and I don't regret having her one bit, but sleep deprivation is no joke - she would be very effective at torturing terrorists for interrogations. As she lies on my lap right now taking a bottle (of formula! the horror!), looking at me contently with those beautiful eyes, it's hard to believe how bad things get at night or how broken I feel when she's screaming and I can't comfort her. But I spend most of my day feeling like a terrible mother - Am I feeding her enough? Too much? Am I holding her enough? Am I ignoring her too much? Am I spoiling her by doing x/y/z? Should I be pumping more? Should I wake her up to eat or let her keep sleeping during the day?
One of the hardest things, hands down, is not knowing what to do. Sure, I get that there's no right answer and that all babies/families are different, but there is SO much conflicting information out there, and when you read one thing, it tells you in detail why it's the best and what dire consequences you will face if you do otherwise. So even if you find something that works, you're constantly second-guessing yourself, wondering, "Is this going to screw up my kid or lead to a habit that is going to make me even more miserable in the future?" Because I guarantee, whatever you're doing, there is a book out there telling you just that. One of the most touted pieces of advice is 'sleep when the baby sleeps.' This sounds good, and pretty simple, until you realize that a) there are a lot of other things you need to get done in the day, like, um, eating and using the bathroom, and b) if your baby is like mine, it is impossible to sleep when she sleeps because she is a noisy sleeper ('sleep like a baby' my azz). Then there's the advice to play and interact with her as much as possible. Considering how much she sleeps, it's hard to know when I'm supposed to be doing this; one book says to keep her awake after I feed her. Okay, but that's hard to do, and if I keep her awake she generally just keeps eating (and her stomach only holds so much...). Plus, hey, isn't this cutting into my supposed nap time???
K eats every 2-3 hours. At night this sucks even more than it sounds because between diaper change, preparing the bottle, and eating (she is a sloooow eater) it generally takes 45 minutes to an hour to get her back in bed. This is on a good feed, they can easily go up to two hours (though usually she will 'sleep' for 3-4 hours after those...unless she throws up). Then there is the issue of comforting her to get her to go to sleep; she is a comfort sucker, and she will easily trick you into thinking she is still hungry, and she will keep eating until she pukes...so you really have to be careful and deal with a lot of crying before it becomes clear that either she is actually hungry (which still might lead to puking) or she wants to sleep. Here is the issue with the advice to feed on demand - she gives all the hunger cues in the book, even when she's not hungry. And she won't take a freaking pacifier (yet - I am a horrible parent because I TRY to get her to take one).
Then, if you put her down to sleep, she will flail around and make non-upset noises that make it impossible for you to sleep. Well, for me to sleep - I've always been a light sleeper, though, and Jeff can mostly sleep through it. All of this can take another 30 minutes to an hour, so she may be ready to eat again just by the time I'm drifting off (or, I may never get to drift off). Usually our solution is to have her sleep on me; I don't sleep well like this, but it's better than no sleep because she's screaming - and this is one of those examples of things that I'm probably doing wrong, but it's the only way to get her to sleep and dammit, that's what we're going to do and deal with the consequences later.
She sleeps much more deeply/soundly during the day, so I am usually able to sneak in a short nap, but there are a lot of other things I need to do during the day (like pump, blargh). Thankfully I finally finished my thesis and sent it out to my reviewers last week, so that's one less thing to worry about. We were trying to get her to shift away from a nocturnal schedule, again, based on what we've read, and so far it hasn't worked AT ALL. Today at my 2-week checkup, the midwife told me not to worry about that, she's still really young and will most likely shift on her own, and if she hasn't by six weeks then we can work on it. Well, crap, that all sounds good but since Jeff is working and I'm trying to take over as much as I can at night, I would realllly like her to sleep more! I guess we'll just power through it though. I remember reading about the nocturnal to diurnal shift when I was still pregnant and thinking I was so smart for reading this and planning; that and encouraging a 'schedule' a little later on made me feel pretty smug, let me tell you. But now I realize that it's a free-for-all, you just do what you can and try to survive with as few tears as possible. There are times when I would hand her to a stranger on the street for a few hours of sleep (obviously I would want her BACK after those few hours!). I'm actually kind of looking forward to having our family visit in less than two weeks (I know, shocking!) because supposedly they will take care of her and let me nap. We'll see if I can actually nap with that many people in the house, though.
Bottom line: there is no right answer, and everything feels wrong. I feel guilty all of the time for one thing or another (and not just for her, but also for my sleep-deprived husband), and I keep wondering when it's supposed to get better. It HAS to, or people wouldn't keep having kids. But when she is laying there in my arms, I am so overwhelmed by happy emotions instead of frustration, and I know that I can make it through at least one more day.
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