Sleep Like a Baby?

Well, well...whoever coined that one has definitely not met many babies in his/her lifetime; at least not many like mine. And, thereby I finally get down to writing a post I was putting off for the longest time ever, because just writing this brings out all my pent up emotions and normally has me going on a rampage:

"The Tale of the Elusive Sleep".

From the day Sid arrived at my side, some motherly intuition told me to be very careful with his sleep. I used to whisper and tiptoe around him, only to be scolded by one and all that thats all too silly and babies don't wake up that soon. Even when everyone noticed him waking up every half hour, (after a  marathon 2 hour effort to make him sleep) no one would agree it was due to the sound of the pressure cooker whistle from the ground floor at the other end of the house! So, I was all alone trying to ensure that he slept beyond 45 mins, at least once in the day time as well as the night time.

Over a period of time though, everyone had to agree (extremely reluctantly) that he was a cat-napper who would wake up at the tiniest possible sounds, even some that only he and Danny (our Dog) could here! We even asked a few paediatricians if it was ok that such a tiny baby wouldn't sleep at all and they all said the same thing - that if the baby is happy, active, playing normally and so forth, there is no point in interfering, it will all shape up just fine. What no one seemed to get was that mama was tired, sleep-deprived and had become a zombie.

Then there were people giving me time lines by when babies start sleeping normally, like 3 months, which later become 4 and then 6, though I am yet to see any change whatsoever.

I went around doing a lot of online research on baby sleep patterns but could not figure out anything wrong with what I was doing. Whats worse is other parents who complained about there baby "not sleeping through the night" complained about having to wake up every 3-4 hours. and this had me even more depressed; what I wouldn't give for even 2 hours of undisturbed sleep.

To top it all came a thousand different advice from all quarters, out of which my least favorite was when people asked me not to be especially quiet so as to make him "used-to" sleeping through noise. Yeah! you can say that since you didn't walk aorund, singing and swinging a sleepy crying baby for the last 2 hours, only to have him wake up in 15 mins cos of some sound you made, esecially when you yourselves are sleep deprived and practically fainting!!!

People even ask me how I went back to my post pregnancy weight so quickly. I am sure all these walks have hepled me (lose) a ton.

Anyhow this state of things continued, and then we shifted from Trivandrum to Pathanamthitta, And then it got worse (like I had imagined THAT possible!!!). But thankfully that seemed to be only due to a change of place and he  went back to his half an hour routine soon enough. 

Mama's half hour break time



Whats really puzzling us these day is that whenever we go back to trivandrum he manages to sleep through 4-5 hours without any disturbance at all and as soon as we come back he goes back to 30-45 mins routines. We are all racking our brains trying to find out what might be missing here cos it can't be the "new place" phenomenon anymore; He lived in trivandrum for about 3 months and has been here for almost 3 months now. Only if I could get that missing link.

So, here we are still struggling and living by the motto "Wake Up Sid". (Yea yea bad one, but sleep deprivation can do that to ones brain!)

P.S (on a serious note) all those out there asking me not to be quiet, please note that docs advice to do whatever it takes to ensure your baby sleeps at a particular time everyday. Eventually he will be habituated to fall asleep at that time whatever be the conditions. (I am working really hard towards it) On the other hand if you keep making noises (to make him used to it), his system will just get used to not sleeping at that time. We all have these internal clocks.