Pregnant mommies, have you ever heard the saying, "Enjoy the sleep while you can?" I'm hear to tell you, it's true, but more true than that would be, "You'll never sleep again, so enjoy your last semblance of normalcy in that department!"
Okay, so it's not ALL true for all mommies, but 7.5 months in, I can tell you I haven't had sleep in 7.5 months, and even more than that. I started having interrupted sleep at the very beginning of pregnancy, stretching to the end and now, I hardly ever, get sleep. I'm not trying to exaggerate things here, my lovely son detests sleep and anything to do with it.
I've read every sleep book, I had expectations going into mommyhood about what it would be like. I'd have weeks of broken sleep, but just like the plan I had followed "Babywise," my son would be sleeping through the night at 6 weeks. Now please know, sleeping through the night (STTN) is clinically when a baby sleeps 5 hours straight (not your 8,10,12 hours that you'd really like). My son at 7.5 months has probably STTN a handful of times. Worse than that, he wakes every 1,2, maybe a stretch of 3-4 hours tops. And naps, we won't even start on naps.
Now, before you start suggestion what we should do, please know, we've done it all. We first followed our gut, which was to CIO. It worked for awhile. Then we did it multiple times again, this all after months of holding our son while he slept as we stayed awake. I hit the breaking point, the point where I wanted to leave my family, the point where I couldn't take it anymore and CIO was our immediate answer. We tried the rocking to sleep, the pick up/put down, the 5 S's, co-sleeping, every single method out there. Nothing works, at least not for more than a few days.
This is not the mommyhood I expected, or signed up for. I'm exhausted, stressed, frustrated. I'm here to tell you mommies, when others are bragging about their children STTN at an early age, it makes your blood boil. I really don't wish a sleepless baby on anyone (okay maybe I do so I don't feel like such a bad momma), but seeing that your baby is a great sleeper, takes wonderful naps, goes down without screaming for an hour or more at a time, and doesn't wake constantly in the night, really makes me upset! I know it's not anyone's fault and you should be excited that your baby sleeps, but I'm pretty sure my heart breaks every time I hear of the "perfect" baby.
Maybe those other moms with all these problems just never share their issues. Maybe they want to make everyone else think that life is just grand. And maybe I should sugarcoat my life in mommyhood, but I'd much rather be there for others going through the same thing. I'd rather tell my story so that people going into mommyhood with much of the same expectations that I had, won't be so broken down. I never imagined that I'd still be at this spot with a 7.5 month old. I never imagined that I would understand why some people do end up shaking their baby. I would never be able to do this (I've always put E down when it's gotten bad), but as I talked with my aunt about sleep problems, she also spoke the words of understanding this when she was in my shoes. Pure exhaustion, frustration, and complete brokenness in mommyhood is a scary place to be. I'm there, almost every day.
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