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Exit Light, Enter Night: Where the Hell is the Sandman?
Even before you bring your precious bundle of joy and sunshine home from the hospital, chances are, you made a decision about their sleeping arrangements. Baby’s bassinet/crib/Pack N’ Play was probably bought and set up well in advance of their arrival, and when you came home, you merely had to plunk Junior into the sleep receptacle. You probably had no doubts about the fact that your child was going to sleep in their crib, and that you and your partner would bed down in your room, the way things were before Baby made an exodus from your crotch.
Sucker.
How many of us actually had that happen?
More than likely, one of the following things went down:
Scenario 1:
Baby would only sleep in the bouncy seat with the vacuum cleaner running, while a continual loop of Oprah and Ellen played in the background for ambiance, and you used your foot to rock the seat back and forth in perfect 4/4 rhythm. The minute you stopped one of the magical elements, baby would immediately wake up and scream bloody murder. Valuing your last shreds of sanity, you can now repeat every episode of daytime talk like a walking transcript, hum in tune with your vacuum cleaner, and have a calf muscle that rivals that of The Hulk.
Scenario 2:
Baby would only sleep in the car seat, while the car was driving at 70 MPH, with total silence in the car other than the sound of the tires on the pavement. Any time the car would stop, or someone would fart/cough/breathe, the baby would wake up and holler for several hours, inconsolably. Valuing your sanity, your vehicle now has hundreds of kilometers over your lease agreement limit, and you haven’t heard a CD or radio station in the car since.
Scenario 3:
Baby screamed in the crib. Baby screamed in the bassinet. Baby screamed in your arms. Baby screamed in the bouncy seat. Baby screamed in the $1000 Bugaboo Frog stroller. Baby screamed in the custom designed sling. Baby screamed in the carseat driving down the road at 70 MPH – which is what worked for your friend’s baby. After 48 hours of constant aural bombardment and sleep deprivation (why didn’t the Viet Cong just use babies on their POWS?) you give up and take baby to bed with you, where you both fall into a coma, and wake up wondering why you wasted $500 on a crib in the first place. Baby moves into the bed, hubby moves to the couch, and when Baby gets married 25 years later, she asks you to come along on her honeymoon so that she can get some sleep, because she never moved out of your bed.
Scenario 4:
You put the baby in the crib. The Baby wasn’t impressed, and let you know it. You told the Baby “Look here, buster. I have just had a team of plastic surgeons reconstruct what USED to be my perineum, but is now an assgina after your massive head came shooting out. You are going to sleep in that baby jail, and if you don’t like it, tough titties. Cry it out. You get on that little baby cell phone, call up your little baby friends, and tell them what a Mean Mommy you have. Suck it.”
Scenario 5:
Baby went into the crib without so much as a fuss, and slept through the night from day one. Your sleep never suffered, and you’re a LYING LIAR WHO LIES.
Future parent? The angry, wrinkled, red sausage that you birthed isn’t going to like your plans. Keep an open mind, and be flexible. Never say “I’d never…” or “My baby would never…” It is the parenting equivalent of the horror movie blonde who stands there and screams instead of running and hiding, and ultimately gets hacked to pieces by a psycho killer.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
My son actually DID start sleeping through the night at 2 months in his own bed… mind you, the bed was an arms length from the bed and if the boy was upset, my arm would fly into the bassinet and pat his tummy whenever he started to cry. I was VERY lucky. I have listened to sleep horror stories and make sure that I never take for granted that I have such a great sleeper.
So true, so true! Sorry, Rebecca, if his crib was in your room it doesn’t count.
I had two Scenario #1 babies, a very content starting off the night in her own crib but ended up in my bed most nights baby, and by the 4th one I pretty much gave up and she slept in my room and/or bed until she was nearly two. The path of least resistance is well-traveled in my house.
Awesome. I had the model that started off in a cradle next to my bed. Then she decided that wasn’t good enough, and would ONLY sleep slouched in some kind of pretzel position in her carseat/carrier thing. So she’d sleep in that next to our bed. Strange, but hey, whatever keeps the peace. Silence is golden.
Thank God for women who will speak the truth! Before I had my first, I was naive enough to say “I will never let my child cry”. Little did I know I was growing a baby who wouldn’t sleep a wink from the moment we brought her home. She screamed the entire first night and by morning we went out and bought every swing, bouncy thingey and soothing cd we could grab hoping it would change our luck. It didn’t work and she continued to wake at least every 2 hours until she was nearly 10 months old at which point I was clinically insane. Once we finally decided to sleep train her, with guidance from a child sleep expert (yes they exist, yes they’re expensive and yes they are WORTH IT!), I thought I had it all worked out for the second baby…but the nightime drama continues with the second one who refuses to sleep past 5am. Sigh. One day I’ll be able to sleep again…right?
Ah, Rebecca. Kristin is right. That doesn’t count.That’s a hybrid of Scenario 3 & 4 – you had a sleeping containment unit right next to your bed, and you also had to intervene to promote continued slumber. Your situation was better than most, in that you obviously got sleep after 2 months, but that’s still not a mythical “slept through the night in a crib down the hall without fuss” sighting.
Just like Agnostics contend that there MIGHT be a God, but they sure don’t experience Him, I contend that there MIGHT be a freaky baby or two, over time, that allowed themselves to be dropped in a crib. I have never actually seen this in person, nor do I personally know anyone who has experienced this first hand.
Rachel – the FOUR YEAR OLD STILL DOESN’T SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT. STILL. *Head explodes* I’m seriously going to have to go to college with the girl, so I can crawl into bed at night with her, so she can get some sleep. She’ll also still probably be trying to fondle my boobies, but that’s a topic for another time.
Also, if it wasn’t already clear, I have two of the Scenario 3, with the first child being more severe than the second.
The younger one actually sleeps, providing there is a warm body nearby. The older one only sleeps when the moon is in the seventh house, Mars and Mercury are in perfect alignment, and the Angel of Death has cracked open the 7th seal. Or if we need to be somewhere pronto. Then it’s nap time.
Two Scenario 3 babies here. By the time the second one rolled around I didn’t have the energy to see if she responded to any other scenario, anyhow. Child #1 didn’t get out of our bed OR sleep through the night until she was 4.5, at which point I more or less promptly became pregnant with #2, who has yet to reliably sleep through and is nearly 2 years old.
Child #3 is due any day now and had better be another Scenario 3 baby, because I don’t have the energy to deal with anything else.
LOL, Tia. Although some nights when I am ripping my hair out trying to figure out why the kids aren’t sleeping, I struggle to find any humour in the situation. My boys are a combo of 1,2, and 3. Every once in awhile we decide to get “tough” and go with #4. That works until the next cycle of teething/nightmares/growing spurt etc at which point we give up (again) and take them into our bed. We actually have a spare mattress permanently stashed under our bed for our little night time visitors
Hey, I had one of those mythical babies that slept through at six weeks old in his very own crib in his own room.
He was so great we ended up having a second baby. A baby with colic, severe reflux, and spent about five months straight screaming. And didn’t sleep in her own room until she was a year old, and at 3 1/2 she still ends up in my bed.
Shoulda quit while I was ahead.
Hah, Tia.
I had a number 5 for my first. Then, I got stuck with a #1. I had to rock her so much that I developed awesome calves.
With this third one, I’ve resorted to option #3. It’s bliss. We crash across the whole bed, and my husband sleeps on the couch. I end up with more room, though, so it’s not a total loss!!
Speak it, woman!
One of the positive side effects of having a premature baby (sue me, I like my silver linings!) was that she was on a 4 hour schedule when we brought her home and was used to having her own space. After all, you spend 10.5 weeks in your own apartment (or incubator) and see if you want to be crowded by your folks all the time.
But, then again, she could just be weird. I know I tend to be.
I got the sneaky one who spent the first 2 months sleeping in his cot (in our room, they tell you you have to do that in England, SIDS etc) in 5-6 hour shifts. 4 months old now and wakes every two hours. We co-sleep (’I'll never co-sleep!’) from 6-7.30 to get that extra time. Never say never. About anything. They can hear you.
Daelan, what you got was, as far as I can tell, the only bonus to having a preemie. My daughter spent 5 weeks in her own incubator on a 3 hour schedule, so she was quite happy to sleep in her bassinet (within arms reach) for 3 hours at a time when she came home. It wasn’t until she was 18 months that we started to have fun sleep issues… Although putting her on an international flight to anywhere pretty much guarantees sleep, even now at the age of 7. Expensive way to get some sleep though!
You know, I’ve been thinking about this article over the past day or so, and I honestly can’t really remember what kind of sleeper my three children have been.
I’ve obviously blocked it from my memory in an effort to keep hold to my last shreds of sanity.
Thanks for all the feedback, ladies. It makes my heart glad that my hypothesis is correct in most instances. I’ve had a few detractors advise me that they have multiple children that slept in cribs, but I’m pretty sure they were putting scotch in their bottles to attain that condition.
See, I had the schizophrenic anti-2. His sleep needs were very specific. Sometimes he would only sleep on the couch propped on my shoulder. Sometimes he would only sleep swaddled in the crib or in my bed. Sometimes he would only sleep in the Moses basket with a pillow packed in above his head. Sometimes he would only sleep in the swing. But the car? Oh no, no, no. He would not, and still will not, sleep in the car.
I cannot tell you how much I resent people who say, “but ALL kids sleep in the car.” No, they do not. My kid can be exhausted, but the second he gets in the car, he’s like a long-haul driver hopped up on No-Doz.
He did start sleeping through the night at 14 months in his own bed, though. Or at least, that’s when I stopped turning on the baby monitor.
My daughter was the ever-present other. She had to sleep in a car seat for the first three months of her life due to reflux, but actually slept quite peacefully there. Transitioning her to the crib was a few nights of Scenario 4, but again, she soon slept peacefully. The girl just wants to sleep, I guess.
Now, though? Now that we’ve put her in the big girl bed? You couldn’t pay the child to fall asleep easily. Just last night I found her pantsless and diaperless passed out on the floor, having spent quite a bit of time arranging her babies in tableaux. The baby that used to be sunshine in the morning is now a 30-pound grumpy-ass hyena when she wakes. Love it.
Baby one was #1 and when baby two was following his footsteps, I got that book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and enacted #4 (without the plastic surgery) at about four months and she slept great after that. Other kids (I have 5 total), first 3-4 months it’s co-sleeping then scenario 4 and they sleep great. Mind I still nurse 2-3 times a night till I wean them at a year, but they are in their own beds, not in my room. What can I say, I’m a die-hard cry-it-out mom. Can’t argue with success.