And On the Fourth Night There Was Sleep

Sophie slept through the night last night.  I know, I can hardly believe it myself.

And because this topic has been on the radar again recently (see article in Psychology Today), I feel compelled to share my experience.  Yes, we finally relented and resorted to letting Sophie cry it out. 

For those of you that may not know, this is a polarizing, controversial topic.  The approach is basically what it sounds like: letting your babe cry during the night until they get themselves back to sleep (for a little more background, go here – there are several approaches and modified versions of this method, popularized by Dr. Richard Ferber). 

I’ve always had mixed feelings about this sleep training method.  Any parent knows how agonizing it is to listen to your babe scream bloody murder, even if it might be for the (hoped for) greater good.  And I can’t get behind the whole “put ‘em to bed and sleep as far away as possible so you can’t hear ‘em” suggestion, either.

I do believe that at a point a child does need to learn to self-soothe.  This doesn’t mean there aren’t going to be nighttime instances that require parental assistance.  However, I also think babes are creatures of habit, and I know my babe has gotten very, very used to seeing me multiple times per night.  Whether she “needs” me or not, apparently she does like to see my face anywhere from 2-5 times per night.

This might be flattering on some level if I could sleep my days away and party it up with her all night.  Alas, I cannot.

We may have arrived at this point much sooner were it not for the continuing issues with breast feeding, and fluid intake in general.  Her nursing has been so erratic, and as of last week had slowed down to one feeding per day – at about three in the morning. 

I’ve had continued concerns and anxieties about her hydration levels.  When her nursing slowed to this one nighttime feeding for close to a week, I called the pediatrician (again) in a panic, because even her one nighttime feeding was brief, and I could tell she was waking for it out of habit, not hunger.

After a lengthy discussion with the pediatrician, I was assured (although not pleased) that I have on my hands a baby that eats like a linebacker, but that cares very little for fluids of any sort (oh, how I’ve tried).  He ruled out anything being medically wrong with her and concluded that “this is just the way she is.”

When I expressed concern that I wouldn’t be able to breastfeed much longer since her demand is so low (and pumping is not helping to maintain my supply) he said, “You’re probably right.  It’d be preferable, but she’ll be fine.  We’d like her to have breast milk or formula for another couple months, but she’ll be okay either way.”

On some instinctual level, I knew this all along, but hearing someone say it out loud was such a relief.  We all know that during a baby’s first year of life that breast milk (or formula) should be the main source of nutrients.  Sophie has other plans, and I need to accept that.  It hasn’t been easy and I’m still not quite there.

So after attempting to get my head around all of this, and knowing that medically she is on stable ground, I knew it was time to get to work on her sleep habits.  We are both miserable most of the day because neither one of us sleeps for any considerable stretch of time. 

For a long time the only way she would go back to sleep was if she would nurse.  Not nurse to sleep, mind you.  She hasn’t done that since she was two months old.  No, she would nurse, I would lay her back down, and she would go to sleep.

However, as time went on the number of overnight feedings decreased, but not the amount of times she woke up.  Most babes want to be snuggled back to sleep.  Not Sophie.  She does want me to come in and pick her up.  But then she gets antsy and wants me to put her back down.  So I do.  And sometimes that’s enough, and sometimes it isn’t.

Long story short, she fusses for much of the night.  She resists going back to sleep, for whatever reason(s) she has.

With crying it out you have to be consistent.  And for me there’s any number of reasons why I’ll eventually go in to rescue her.

As anyone who knows me could attest, after nine months of no sleep I am truly not myself these days.  I’m forgetful.  Cranky.  Struggle to concentrate.  Struggle to make decisions.  Struggle to take good care of myself as I use what little energy I have to care for everyone else.  As you can see, it’s a struggle.

So something had to give.

We started last Thursday.  I kept asking, “We’re really going to do this?  We’ll really just not go in there?”  I was nervous (I have to mention I tried a modified version of crying it out three months ago, where you go in at set times during the crying to briefly soothe – but not pick up – your baby.  This did not go well, so for this go-round we decided to go all in.  I will also point out that my pediatrician strongly encouraged trying this method for 3-5 nights, and to my doubtful glance said, “I know some people strongly disagree, but I’m telling you it will work.”).

Thankfully, this process has not been as torturous as I had feared.  She has woken up, she has fussed, and at times she’s cried hard for short stretches, but so far she hasn’t resorted to that top-of-her-lungs screaming that I can’t stomach.  And part of me knows this is the key to me sticking with the method.  I know her screams.  I know when she’s hungry or when there’s something wrong (i.e. pain from teething).  I also know when she’s simply mad and fussy and wants me to rescue her.  Even though it is hard for me to ignore those kinds of pleas, I am not doing either of us a favor at this point by repeating the rescue cycle.

The third night she woke several times and each time it took her nearly an hour to get herself back to sleep.  It was a long, long night. 

Then last night: she slept from 6:45 – 5:45.  Eleven glorious hours.  I didn’t manage anything like that, waking several times to check her.  She was fine.  She woke this morning babbling happily in her crib.  She never does that, and it put the biggest grin on my face.     

I won’t lie.  I’m not sure I could stick with this if she really screamed for any great length of time.  And even if this “works” for us, I couldn’t be a champion for the method.  It’s honestly come down to desperation and the fact that any other tactic I’ve tried has done nothing to improve her nighttime sleep. 

I’m once again reminded that we do what works best for us at any given moment.  And by “us” I mean parents and Sophie.  I wouldn’t press on if I didn’t think there were benefits in it for her, too. 

Will she do it again tonight?  Have we finally, finally, finally made it over the hump?  I don’t know.  But for the first time in a long time I feel hopeful that maybe things are changing…  for the better.

A Sticky Subject...

I recently came across an article entitled, “Don’t Glorify My Breast Milk,” discussing the book, “Is Breast Best?  Taking on the Breastfeeding Experts and the New High Stakes of Motherhood,” by Joan Wolf.

Wolf’s stance is: “It’s time to end the glorification of breast milk and the shaming of mothers who choose formula. For many women, nursing works; for many others, it doesn’t. But accusations of selfishness and bad mothering won’t contribute to anyone’s good health.” 

I can agree with the last sentence wholeheartedly. 

This is harder to swallow: “[N]ot all women are able to nurse, whether it’s because the baby doesn’t latch, it’s painful for the mother, she doesn’t have time, or she simply doesn’t like it. In those cases, says Wolf, the pro-breast-feeding studies, without appropriate scientific evidence, make the mother feel inadequate.”

Hmm.

At the end of the day this is a choice every mother has to make, and ultimately, she should do what is going to work best for her and her child (and I realize not all women even get to choose; for various reasons this decision is sometimes made for them).  However, I have to admit I find it unfortunate when a woman won’t even give breastfeeding a chance, when the decision is made before baby even arrives … especially when it falls under the reasons of time and/or inconvenience. 

The No-Plan Plan

(or, why things got off to such a rough start)

I'll be the first to admit that I was (and still am) anti-birth plan. I downloaded a copy of a birth plan template from thebump.com, and was rather overwhelmed to see it was six pages long. This isn't to say you shouldn't give your upcoming birth some time and consideration. It's crucial to educate yourself and know what could/should & likely will happen.

However, my experience in life is that any time you try to plan for an event, and put all of your hopes into the said event going a very specific way, your plans will be foiled. I have never known any major life event to go perfectly, ever.

I figured birth would fall into this category as well. Why force parameters onto something you have no control over? So instead of compiling a birth plan, I put together a brief list of "preferences" for my OB. Such as: I would prefer not to have any pain relief. I would prefer to move about as needed/possible. The list was brief: eight preferences. When I showed it to my OB, he pulled out a ruler and measured the page. "What is this?" he exclaimed. "Four inches? It's the shortest birth plan ever!"

It felt good to not expect my birth to go a particular way.

Well, readers, let me tell you that while in some ways I had amply prepared myself for the process of birth (and in my mind, by extension, breastfeeding), in a few key ways I did not.

MISTAKE #1
I assumed I wouldn't have a c-section.

Why did I do this? Well, my pregnancy was "normal," and up until days before Eli's birth there were no inclinations that I would have any complications. Even then, the issue at hand was that my pelvis was not opening. My OB assured me that in most instances this became a non-issue once the woman began to dilate. A tiny red flag went up somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, but I chose to ignore it. I shouldn't have.

You see, in the few pregnancy books I did read, I always skipped over the c-section chapters. I wasn't going to have one, they freaked me out, why scare myself even more by reading about them?

MISTAKE #2
I assumed that breastfeeding would proceed without a hitch (yes, I can be a naïve idiot).

How the scenario played out in my mind: I would naturally birth my son, he would be placed onto my stomach, and minutes later he would breastfeed for the first time, thus completing one of the oldest, most natural scenes in all of history.

Remember Mistake #1?

I ended up having an emergency c-section after twenty hours of labor. When I emerged from recovery I found myself in a drugged-up, stupefied state. By the time Eli was wheeled in for our first true introduction, he'd already been introduced to the bottle and formula. This hadn't been my "preference," but I hardly felt in a state to disagree. I could barely move, how was I supposed to breastfeed?

MISTAKE #3
Not having a breastfeeding plan.

Sure, there's tons of talk about birth plans and what will happen during delivery given factors A, B, or C. But I had given no thought about what I would do, what support systems I would lean on, if and when breastfeeding became a harrowing challenge, which it did almost immediately.

On day three post-partum, after asking the nurses several times, the hospital's lactation consultant finally paid me a visit. At this point I was becoming discouraged from the entire enterprise, and the blisters on my right nipple had me wincing each time Eli was forced onto my breast to "try again." Maybe this wasn't going to work?

Thankfully, the LC had a soothing demeanor, and offered some useful tips and suggestions. Of course, one of those suggestions was that we not feed the baby any more formula. At all. Considering all the problems I was having getting the baby to latch on, this didn't seem realistic, but I became determined that dammit, the baby wasn't going to have any more supplemental formula.

MISTAKE #4
Failing to be flexible.

Once I decided Eli wasn't going to have any more formula, I became hell-bent on that goal. And for nearly two days (the last day at the hospital and the first day home) he was an entirely breastfed baby and I felt like I had somehow overcome the worst of it. I was doing this!

That is, until I wasn't. Until Eli wouldn't latch on, again. Until he wasn't eating sufficiently. Until I was so sleep-deprived that I caved in, sobbing to my husband, "Just give him some formula." I felt so defeated. I felt like I had failed. I felt like a terrible mother, poorly equipped to nourish my son.

In reality, I had underestimated the toll labor and delivery would take, as well as the effects of ping-ponging hormones raging through my body. In the days after birth the highs and lows came with alarming force and with small passages of time between each extreme.

I needed to cut myself some slack.

I made a couple calls to close friends and to my acupuncturist (who had recently given birth to her second child & is always a source of wisdom for me). It was from these conversations that I began to learn that breastfeeding rarely comes "naturally" to anyone. It's a taxing process, one that takes practice, patience, and gentleness towards oneself. Having a meltdown each time we needed to supplement with formula, until we could get things on track, wasn't going to do anyone any good whatsoever.

I began to wonder why, in all the excitement of pregnancy, in all the talks with friends about pregnancy-related ailments, discomforts, joys, and fears, we had never talked about breastfeeding?

That's why I’m here. I'm here to share my challenges, my triumphs, my frustrations, and perhaps most importantly, my mis-steps. I find myself struggling, at odds with what I think is best for Eli, and what is best for me. There are feelings of guilt and selfishness. So far, I have managed to persevere. I am ten weeks in and still breastfeeding. For me, this is an enormous victory.

I want to talk about breastfeeding (and motherhood) with openness and honesty, and because it is in my nature, with humor. This is a place for sharing, with no judgments handed out when the goals, tactics, and ideas of others differ from my own.

My one breastfeeding goal from the earliest stages of pregnancy was to breastfeed Eli for a year. We'll see if I get there, but if I don't, I will back up and remind myself of that "gentleness towards oneself" bit.