Are there any other new moms out there struggling with sleep deprivation and exhaustion? I literally think that I am never going to sleep a full night again.
It’s been four months since my son was born. He is the best thing that has ever happened to me, aside from my hubby, of course! He is such a happy little guy and brings us so much joy. But don’t let those cute baby smiles fool you. He is a devious little sleep deprivation specialist and will get you just when you think you’re out of the woods.
We were hitting a stride. Around 10 weeks he was sleeping longer stretches at night. I was finally starting to feel like I was coming back to life and resembling a little piece of the person I was before he was born. I was starting to believe a solid night’s sleep was in the near future.
Wrong.
We are now in the 4-month sleep regression phase. I didn’t even know there was such a phase. But believe me, he made sure that I learned!
He wakes up at night. Like all the time. And it requires some next-level detective work to figure out why. On top of that, he has learned to roll from back to tummy, but doesn’t yet have an interest in figuring out how to get from his tummy to his back. So every night when he wakes up, he rolls his little body onto his tummy. Then cries. Loudly. So, I get up and roll him onto his back. He settles. I get back into bed. I close my eyes and start to drift off… 3…2…1… WAHHHHH. He’s awake again. We repeat our middle of the night dance.
I have been furiously reading about sleep training. There are so many sleep training methods that it’s hard to know which one is best. Some even seem to contradict each other. And I’m pretty sure I’m breaking all the cardinal rules at this point.
- Don’t rock him to sleep: I definitely do this
- Don’t feed him to sleep: okay, well he eats and passes out. How am I supposed to prevent this?
- Put him down awake: ummm, see number 2
- Don’t rely on a pacifier: haha, OK…
So, here’s to all the mamas with new babies. We may not be in the thick of homeschooling little ones during quarantine, but we are exhausted just the same!
