Katelin's New Baby Management

Sleep, its what’s for dinner

July 7, 2012

I want to thank Jen for bringing this up the other day. It was a HUGE part of our lives for so long, and it really still is. Sleep. Oh, how I love the. Let me count the ways. Which brings me to the topic of this blog. Sleep routines with a newborn.

*Disclaimer–Everybody has their own routine that works, don’t hate me because mine is beautiful*

Its October. It’s getting colder, and I was getting fatter. No not last October, the one before that. October 2010. Baby Mac decided it was time. Well, we decided it was time to evict her. So we served her notice in the form of pitocin and she gathered her things and ran outta her womb like it was on fire. She was so cute and squishy. She had clearly been bulking up for her debut. I can’t blame her. There were lots of photos. She just wanted to look good. And she was so cute. Did I mention that already? Ok, I just want to emphasize how stinking cute she WAS. Until she turned into a monster. A no sleep, always wanting to eat, pee through her diaper, projectile pooping monster. She was great until it came to bedtime. She was all about staying up with her parents. Again, I can’t blame her. We are pretty awesome. In the spirit of sharing, I wont leave too much out. Basically, she decided I was a buffet. An all you can drink nightmare. She cluster fed until I was so raw I couldn’t bear the thought of nursing for another minute, much less a year. I gave it the ole college try. I toughed it out. For about a week. And then I threw in the towel. When she gave me a blood blister that made my milk bloody, I had had enough. We were supplementing at that point I believe and I was attempting to pump to keep up with her without her razor sharp sucking machine of a mouth making me even more sore. I’d nurse and pump. I hear that pumping that early was a mistake, but let me tell you, at that time you could have told me she would get pure gold outta my boobs and I still wouldn’t have let her near me. So we started formula. Which brings me to the ultimate point. Our routine.

Because we switched to formula when she was itty bitty, we were blessed with a routine that included me sleeping more than I had been. *Let me mention here that I was also suffering with a pretty rough patch of post partum depression as well, so sleep was high on the list of things I could cope with and frankly needed to cope* So we developed a routine that worked. I got sleep and so did Jacob and Mackenzie…well she did her baby thing.

Jacob was working weekends, so it opened up a few extra options for us. We alternated who got up and who got up when. And I napped almost every time she napped. Which went down to twice a day pretty quickly. I’d wake up with her in the morning and then she’d go back down around 10 or 11 and then she’d be up until 330 or 4 sometimes and we’d go get Hayden from school and then when we came home she and I would nap. I’m not ashamed to say I napped with her. It worked for me. I needed the sleep. I needed the down time I wasn’t getting while I was awake. If I was awake I was trying to do laundry or clean or read or watch TV or just keep busy. So instead, a lot of times, I would just sleep. Sometimes it is the only way I can stop my brain from constantly running. So I do, and I did. Judge if you must, but know that I couldn’t care less. I know for a fact my sleep schedule irritates people. Good for you. Be irritated. I’ll be sleeping, we can discuss it when I wake up.

We started splitting up the nights while she was getting up a lot. One of us would stay up late with her, until at least 2 or 3, and then the other one would get up with her from 3 until whenever. Sometimes I stayed up and sometimes I slept. It was really hit or miss. Ultimately she started getting up less and less and we were able to get more sleep. And God love him, my husband saw that if I was going to get any better emotionally and stay that way, I needed a full night sleep at least a few times a week. So bless his soul, he started staying up with her Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights. He would get up with her, feed her, change her and put her back to bed. All while I slept. Sometimes I would get up and help, and sometimes she would sleep through the night. She was all mine Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights because he was working 12 hours Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Sunday nights just depended on how rough his weekend at work was and how she slept for me.

If you know me, you know I’m a napper, and I’m a sleeper. I like sleep. It makes me feel better. I don’t love it the way I used to because I know I use it to avoid dealing with things, but I also need it more than the average person. I don’t know why, I just do. I always have. I have to get enough sleep to be a decent human being. It’s just the truth. I’m a horrible person to be around if I’m not getting enough sleep. And somehow, my husband is almost the polar opposite. He needs sleep, yes. But he is able to sleep around 6 hours and he’s good. He can’t sleep in either. Thank goodness one of us is that way, I guess. Otherwise we’d never get anything done.

So that’s it. Our routine while baby Mac was an itty bitty.

Now, our sleep routine consists of me sleeping and Jacob getting up with her if she gets up. I rarely get up with her anymore. Not because I don’t want to, but she usually won’t calm down for me like she will for him. And if I pick her up, I can’t put her down. She will just wake up. I have no idea why. It’s not immediate but it’s eventual. As in, if I’m the one who puts her down, she will eventually wake up. It might be 5 minutes it might be an hour, but it will happen eventually. I don’t know why she does it. I don’t know if it’s because she realizes I’m not holding her anymore or if she wants her daddy to put her down for the night, I have no idea. But it doesn’t matter how she got to sleep, if it was with me or Jacob, he has to be the one to physically put her in her bed. Weird, I know.
How she gets to sleep at night is still a struggle and getting her to bed is an issue sometimes. She typically lays down with us and we either sing her to sleep or she watches one of our shows with us. We need to get a rocking chair for her room so we can rock her to sleep again, but for now, this works. It’s not ideal, but my lingering mommy guilt is soothed by laying down with her every single night to go to sleep as a family. So, for now, it works.

And that’s it. A whole post on Baby Mac and her sleep habits. Or lack there of.

From her blog, Esquire and Pacifier