As a first-time mother, I was cautiously hopeful but also a bit smug. My son, a perfect angelic bundle, began sleeping for eight hours straight when he was six weeks old. Eight. Whole. Hours. Surviving A Bad Sleeper
This is the equivalent of learning Latin and running a marathon before breakfast.
I was beaming with pride. “All the sleep training paid off,” I told myself as I patted my copy of Healthy Sleep Habits for Happy Children, like it was an ancient text. I thought I’d cracked the code. Sleep success? It’s done and dusted. Even I caught myself judging parents (silently, of course). You have to be consistent, I’d think. Keep to your routine. It worked. How naive of me.
Then I had a daughter.
Welcome to the Sleep Apocalypse
I knew from the moment she came that she was different. She had already declared war on sleeping by the time she was four weeks old. She was not calmed by swaddling or rocking her, making white noise, singing, shushing, bouncing the baby, or co-sleeping. She screamed as if she were a banshee whenever her head touched the bed. It turned out that sleep was not important to her.
The contrast was pronounced and unrelenting. I tried all the techniques that I had so confidently proclaimed the first time. Not only did they fail, but it seemed that they made things worse. She was against naps. She fought bedtime. She fought with me. By the third month, I was delirious. I knew the streetlights and early morning joggers by name.
Do not use the S-Word
Sleep. Sleep.
Chronic sleep deprivation can cause a particular type of suffering. It’s the hollow-eyed, stumbling-through-the-day, crying-over-toast kind of tired that no coffee can fix. You can forget important things like your PIN or your child’s middle names. You cry when you see nappy ads. You get irrationally upset when people say they are “refreshed”.
Then, just to make matters worse, you run into That Person. It’s the well-meaning grandmother in the shopping centre who tells you, “Oh, I have a grandson who sleeps 10 to 12 hours every night!” He’s just four weeks old! Or the mom at your playgroup casually dropping “Yeah, he has slept through every night since he was 2 weeks.” It must be something I am doing right.
I’ve done both. If you’re reading through bleary-eyed and gritted-teeth, I want to apologise. I didn’t. I did not know.
You are not doing anything wrong
This is the first truth I’ve learned the hard way. In parenting circles, there’s an idea that good technique is the key to sleep. If you follow the right technique, Ferber’s, Babywise’s, No-Cry or Pick-Up/Put Down, or Controlled Crying, for example, you will eventually solve the sleep puzzle.
Sleep isn’t a magic formula. Some of these strategies work well for some babies. What about the rest? But for others? My daughter was not helped by any amount of lavender oil, blackout blinds or routine. For a long period of time, I was blaming myself. Maybe I was inconsistent. Maybe I was just too worried. Perhaps I held her too tightly. Maybe I held her too much.
What I finally realised is that sleep is not an issue of parenting. You don’t win a prize for having the best routine. Your child may not sleep despite you doing everything right. It’s not your fault.
Bad Sleepers: The Real Story
It’s controversial to call a child “a bad sleeper”. I get it. No baby is evil. It’s just what babies do. When you wake up every 90 seconds for two years, it’s bad. It’s like a crisis. Using the term “bad sleeping” can be a shorthand way of saying “I am not well and I need to get help.”
Let me be honest. My daughter was not a good sleeper. With all my love, I say this. She was spirited and strong-willed. She was sensitive. And she had an allergy to REM cycles.
I was in the depths at that time and remember asking myself: how is this sustainable? How can we function with so little sleep?
The truth is that they don’t. I was not thriving. I didn’t glow with maternal joy. I was barely making it. Some nights, I wept right along with her. On some mornings, I could not smile as my son talked about toast and dinosaurs.
What no one tells you
You may be in the trenches now. I’ll tell you some things that sleep books do not.
1. It’s not YOU. It’s not you. It’s not your baby.
You didn’t fail. Your baby’s not broken. Some kids just need more time. Some kids just need more time. Some are more sensitive and take longer to mature. You are not spoiling your child. You are not reinforcing bad habits; you’re just loving them as they go through the hard times. That’s parenting.
2. It is possible that there will not be a suitable solution.
It’s true. Spending hundreds of dollars on sleep consultants, gadgets, and swaddles is not necessary. You can change your routine, diet, baby’s bedding and temperature, or air quality. But nothing changes. There is sometimes no quick fix. In those situations, the only thing you can do to survive is to ride it out.
You will survive. You will survive it. It might be messy.
3. Get help. Get real help.
Say yes if someone offers to hold your baby while you nap. Let your partner work the night shift. You should hire a night nanny if you can. Bless your friend for being able to tolerate the baby crying at 3 am.
It’s not a badge of honour to do it all by yourself. It’s not a sign of maturity to be unable to sleep. Do not suffer in silence.
4. Lower your expectations–radically.
It’s not an easy one for Type A parents. Perfection is not the goal of survival. You don’t need to keep your house clean. You don’t need to cook all your meals yourself. You don’t need to attend every playgroup or read five books every night to your child.
You only have to make it through the day. That’s all you need to do.
And then, one night…
You can’t describe when your bad sleeper decides that he or she will, uh, sleep. No announcement. There’s no big revelation. It just happens.
They sleep for a whole night. You awaken, confused and suspicious. Is it breathing? You wonder as you creep into the room. They’re fine. Peaceful. Asleep. The nightmare starts to fade away.
It doesn’t stick all the time. Regressions, teething, illnesses and daylight saving are all possible. Eventually, however, the balance shifts. The number of good nights starts to exceed the number of bad nights. You no longer feel like you are being held hostage.
You will finally be able to sleep through the night.
What I gained (besides eye bags)
It humbled me. I was humbled. In some ways, it broke me. It also gave me more patience, compassion, and humility than I had ever known I could have.
I no longer judge parents. I don’t assume that there is a quick fix for everything. I never brag about my sleep.
Instead, I search for the mum with bleary eyes in the park. She’s the one with a pram, clutching her takeaway coffee as if it were oxygen. I smile. It’s not a condescending, smug smile. But one that shows solidarity. One that says, “I see you.” I have been you. You are doing a great job.
If You Need To Hear This
You’re still being a good parent if your baby does not sleep.
You’re not the only one who feels tired, broken down and weepy.
You can survive today if that is all you do.
If anyone dares tell you their ideal sleeper, smile politely. If you are able, go home and take a nap. You could also eat some chocolate. Call someone who makes you laugh. Do something nice for yourself because parenting a poor sleeper is not a joke.
One day, I promise you will be able to sleep.
Oh, how glorious it will be!
