When I explain to people that we have “sleep issues” with Abigail, I think they get the wrong idea.
Abigail sleeps. But only on us. That isn’t an exaggeration. I’ve gotten sly about her napping – after I know she’s gotten a solid hour and a half, I put her down in any number of contraptions we’ve purchased in the hopes she’ll hang for at least another 30 minutes so I can get some things done. Like eating. Or showering. Or using the bathroom.
I’ve considered it a great accomplishment, and it’s helped me get through our day, but it’s not really practical.
I should be able to put my own kid down without her screaming. Because it’s not just putting her down to sleep – I can’t put her into any contraption to sit or lie happily when I know she’s been fed, burped, cleaned and loved. There is never a moment where she won’t scream and cry if we aren’t holding her.
It was this that led us to the doctor for the reflux treatment last week – my friend Coleen mentioned that babies who refuse to lie on their backs often have reflux issues. It also isn’t an exaggeration to say that upon hearing this, and subsequently realizing she had a host of other silent reflux signs, that I felt as though the heavens opened up. She would be a different kid! I could maybe put her down!
She is a bit different, no doubt. But she’s still fussy after a feeding, which shouldn’t be. And she still won’t be put down. Well, at least until last night – for the first time ever, she slept in her crib. And I mean for stretches longer than 30 minutes. And when she woke up after sleeping for about four hours, she had a bottle, listened to some lullabies and cuddled in my lap, got swaddled and fell asleep listening to some white noise – specifically some vacuum noise we downloaded yesterday – and then I put her back down where she slept for another two hours.
It was glorious, and I slept in my bed, with my husband, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.
Last night I headed to my friend Jamie’s house. I couldn’t take … whatever it was I couldn’t take. Truth be told, I haven’t been handling any of this particularly well. The overwhelming feelings I’ve had are all “normal” to some degree, of course, but it’s cold comfort when you’re in the thick of it and everyone stares back at you blankly when they realize it’s not really sleep deprivation you’re talking about – you’re talking about a baby who refuses to at all be put down, unless she’s already been dead asleep for more than an hour, leaving you pretty much trapped day and night.
And oh doesn’t it make a person feel like a shining example of motherhood to refer to my child as “trapping” me but it’s true. And with each passing day it’s gotten more stressful as the tools I used to get some relief – a walk in the stroller, a trip to see friends in the car, being strapped into the wrap – were refused outright, too. There has been a lot of crying, a lot of me wishing there were more than a tiny handful of brief moments of happiness, a lot of me wondering if no, really, maybe I shouldn’t have done this.
As Jamie said to me last night, “It shouldn’t be this hard.”
And I agree. It shouldn’t be. It should be hard, but it shouldn’t be to this degree, even at only six weeks in. There should be some pockets of joy in her waking moments, and there really aren’t. I’m not looking for her to do a cancan, just maybe not scream because I’m not holding her. My poor baby girl just never seems at all happy.
Although a baby doing the cancan would be pretty funny.
Last night was a light at the end of the tunnel – maybe the treatment is beginning to work, maybe she is hitting the six-week mark and is just less fussy and more agreeable. Right now Abigail is lying on her back, on her play mat, happy as can be, so maybe. Just the same, we’re going to talk about this with our pediatrician during her appointment on Tuesday since none of this is normal and if she has something more serious wrong with her, or needs a change in dosage of her reflux medication, we want to know.
Right now I feel like a new woman. We slept, Abigail is in a great mood, and neither one of us is having to hold her to keep her from screaming. We might even be able to start really understanding her moods since there is a chance she’ll have ones besides super hungry and super pissed off. I mean, just seeing her hang out and coo and look around at nothing is something we haven’t experienced.
At. All. She doesn’t just sit there and be.
Seeing our kid happy, not to mention being able to drink a cup of coffee and type on my computer, is probably the best feeling I’ve had in weeks.
God, let it last.
