TIL as a new parent: the meaning of ‘sleeping through the night’
by Adam Kuban
Margot, shortly before waking up.
“Is she sleeping through the night yet?” You’ve probably overheard that phrase if you’ve ever been around a group of newish parents.
I’d heard it before but never quite grasped the meaning. I just assumed that babies were finicky and that, sure, they’d wake you up here and there, but some nights they’d sleep for hours and hours (just not the whole night) and that other nights they’d sleep a little less. You know, that it was just sort of luck of the draw from night to night. And then eventually they’d sleep through the night and let you get eight hours.
Nope.
I didn’t realize these little suckers NEED TO BE FED EVERY TWO HOURS. So regardless of what you’re doing—the crossword puzzle, tying lures for fly-fishing, corresponding with prison inmates—you have to stop and feed them.
That means you have to set your alarm at night and get up every couple of hours.
Here’s the rub, too: the countdown clock for the next feeding starts at the beginning of the current feeding. Our bean can sometimes suckle for a total of 40 minutes or more. That’s not including the burping (10 minutes after each breast) and the inevitable diaper change before and after feeding (3 minutes per). So if you’re lucky you get an hour’s sleep between feedings.
(OK, I’m probably going for dramatic effect above. Our pediatrician told us we could go two to three hours between feedings, and we try to feed Margot heavily at night so she can hold out longer. But even then, the most we get is 2.5 hours of shuteye at a stretch.)
Anyway, that’s all nothing new to veteran parents out there, but since this is my blog for myself and maybe some of my non-children-havin’ friends are reading it, well, that’s a TIL—Thing I’ve Learned.
Comments
Just be grateful Margot doesn’t have colic – my oldest son had colic for the first seven months. As my wife had serious post-partum depression, it meant that I was up with him from 8pm to about 3am every day. He would just scream himself purple unless I held him, rocked him and *sang to him* simultaneously. After 5 hours of singing every nursery song I could possibly imagine, my voice would give out and then it was humming for a few more.
Then, once he finally fell asleep at 2 or 3am, he’d wake back up two hours later to be fed. I was basically a zombie at work that year.
(He hated my wife’s singing, so her solution on the odd nights when I got a break was to put him in his car seat and take him for a ride. He would settle down only when the car reached 45mph and we were fairly far from the highway, so it was 20 minutes of screaming before the car went fast enough. His nickname was “Speed Baby”.)
Having heard horror stories of colic (and hearing this one), yes, I’m grateful. She’s slowly been escalating her needs, but not this bad. She used to be content to just be held for a bit then would fall asleep. Then she needed to be rocked in the glider. Now, that’s not doing it, so I have to walk her around the apartment holding her. I’m afraid of the next escalation in soothing will be. We got her a Fisher-Price My Little Snuggabunny cradle-swing, which she seems to like. That’s only since Wednesday night, though. I’ll have to get a full report from my wife after she has a day of using it.