Sleep, newborn style

School starts back up today.  I don’t think the kids mind too much…although I’d love a longer break!  We took several weeks off before the baby was born, in order to be prepared, so it is indeed time.  I’m so thankful for older kids, who do breakfast clean up and help with the pre-schoolers, so that I can have a few minutes to blog.  Those early days of doing it all myself with a gang of little children has surely paid off!   Let me be a reminder to those of you with all little children to “not weary in well doing!”

Newborn Days – Sleep

This isn’t going to tell you how to get more sleep with a newborn.  That is a secret that I don’t really know the answer to!  This is more of…hmmm….just me talking about how I catch bits and pieces of sleep with my newborns.  (And please, remember, this is just how I like to do it.  I love to see how different mothers find ways to bond with their infants.  God placed within us the ability to uniquely nurture our babies, and there is not one right way.  If you are a young mother, just starting out, you need to learn all about your baby, to learn what he or she needs.  You can read books, you can ask friends, you can read advice from other mothers…but you should seek God’s wisdom for how you should mother.  Trust me on this.  It will save you lots of grief later and maybe even some therapy bills later on.  Seek wise advice, but don’t become overly devoted to any parenting guru.)

Is there a philosophy of sleep regarding tiny infants?

I think so.

For me, it begins as soon as the baby is born.  It is more than just sleep, too, and how to get it.  It is the crucial bonding process, that begins in the earliest days of life outside of the womb.  It takes awhile, a few weeks even, before they feel like a separate person to me.  Have any of you ever experienced that feeling?  To place them in a little seat across the room feels foreign and cold.  I like to have my baby with me – right in my arms or on my chest where they can still hear my heartbeat.

I have never been able to lay the baby down in a bassinet or crib to sleep for the first few weeks.  (I will place them there for a few minutes at a time, to help a toddler or to get a shower.  And in this new adventure of parenting both older kids and toddlers and babies, I find that I have to share the baby.    There are bigger kids who want to hold her and snuggle with her.  They need to experience her to the fullest, and she needs to get to know them.  So I make myself share.    )

After a few weeks, the baby is usually more content, and begins to uncurl from what I call the “baby putty” stage.  (That’s where they stay in whatever position you place them in, like Mariam is here on my husband’s chest.  Doesn’t she look like a little tree frog, clinging on?  I wish two year olds could still be placed in the “putty” position and be expected to stay there!)

I sleep like this with her.  Really, I try to catch sleep whenever I can – because it is important to take care of yourself, too!

Some people will tell you that you will spoil your babies if you hold them all of the time, or if you let them sleep with you.  I don’t believe that, at all.  It seems to me that the baby has been so close to you, feeling your warmth and your every move, and listening to your heartbeat for every second of her life – how could she be spoiled by a continuation of this security?  She will eventually grow away from you and not need this comfort, but it can come gradually.  I miss my little one when she is not right beside me, whether in sleep at night, or in the sling in the day time.

Is it safe to sleep with your baby?  I can see in some cases how it might not be.  We have all heard the terrible stories.  But if the baby is lying on your chest, with her head tucked up under your chin, you are aware of her every little cough and gasp.  To me, it feels more safe than having her lie in a bed three feet from me.  I probably rest better, to not be jumping up every 15 minutes to check her. 

This time, this stage doesn’t last very long….just about as long as the newborn stage lasts.  Once my babies begin to “uncurl” from their days in the womb, begin to stretch and grow and become restless, they begin to move just a little further away from me.  They move into a little bed beside mine.  Once they grow some more, and are sleeping longer hours, they move even further away.  It is so gradual that it isn’t too painful, for them or for me.

I do not push a baby to sleep thru the night.  I used to, and in fact, I had great sleepers!  Our first few children slept 12 hours at 8 weeks.  I felt like a very good mother, and the sleep was a bonus!    But then, I had a failure to thrive child, and I learned that it is not good for an infant to go that long without food.  It is not good for a mother’s milk supply, either.  Long stretches without nursing are the beginning of the weaning process.  Infants truly do need to nurse throughout the night.  Their blood sugar stores are not able to keep up with long periods without a resupply.  During the early months, I have just come to accept the fact that I won’t get good sleep.  That just comes with the mothering package for me.  It’s part of my job, because it is best for the baby.  God is our strength at ALL times, but perhaps we realize it better when we are lacking sleep. 

Peace to you, mothers everywhere!  May He grant you wisdom in all that you do, and equip you for every good work!  May you bond with your little ones in a way with a strength that will never depart.  May you raise them to serve Him all of their days!