sleeping like a baby

I forgot another important great expectation. I am keeping the best for last.

I expected a baby who sleeps and I got one who did not.

Let me qualify this.

I did expect sleepless nights with a baby, but only for the first maybe three months? It never crossed my silly head that babies could possibly take longer than say maximum half an year to learn to sleep the night through. What a huge innocence!! I realise now!

David slept random in the first two months of his life, but than slowly setlled into a pattern of sound sleep from 10PM to 2AM plus two-three more waking moments until the morning (8AM). I found that acceptable and I expected it to get better and better. It got worse and worse. When he was around 5 months old my partner draw my attention to the fact that he was continuously sucking at the breast and that we were both half awake half asleep the entire night. We moved David to his own bed. Two months after that he was waking up about once an hour and I had developed a completely out of hand insomnia.

Imagine: he was going to sleep at 7:00PM and then waking up around 8:00PM, 9:30PM, 10:45PM, 12:00PM (around this time I was going to bed), 1:00AM, 1:50AM, 3:00AM, 4:10AM, 5:00AM, 5:45AM, 6:30AM, and then there was a new day that I could not salute, or welcome or greet in any way. Good morning!

After reading a lot of books about babies, about sleep, and babies´sleep, I am much wiser. 30% of three year olds are still waking up at night demanding parental attention. That is three (3) year olds, that´s right.

Was I so naive because I did not inform properly or because this wisdom is not public knowledge? Are we being kept in dark by the society as to what is to be expected from life with a baby (and young child)?

I have a friend who´s sister believes in a universal conspiration of people who have children of not talking about how hard it is to be a parent because otherwise nobody else would have children ever again. I laughed a lot (in recognition) when I heard this.

I talked to a British sleep consultant based in The Netherlands who said that the Dutch health system refuses to accept the sleeplesness of parents and babies, because otherwise they would have to come up with some programs and some health care solutions. Although her private practice is targeting the expat community, this consultant confided to me that her practice is regurarly visited by Dutch parents.

My therapist told me that she had (another) client, mother of a small child, who was loosing it because of lack of sleep. My therapist found an "understanding GP" (family doctor) who helped her find respite care in a hospital for this sleepless lady.

A friend of mine told me she had long discussions with her partner, on what to do with their 9 months old daughter who was waking up every two hours. She hesitated for a long time to allow the child to be "trained" to sleep according to a method that involved progressively longer periods of time of unresponsiveness to the baby´s distressed cries. Finally she did it and the child slept.

Another friend gave birth recently and she is sleepless, struggling with insomnia on the verge of depression. She can´t sleep even on sleeping pills.

All these poeple (women) and their babies. Me and my baby. I never heard of anything like it in my childless years. 33 of them (the childless years). Where were all these stories then? Were they wispers throught the walls? Where were all these people then? Were they shadows? Did I refuse to listen and to see or were they without a voice and without a face?