Trying to understand the sleeping patterns of a baby is like doing fractal geometry without a lecture. You read a lot in baby books and get a lot of advice on what your baby should or shouldn’t do. You’ll hear lots of things that other people’s babies did. You’ll feel equal parts gratified and annoyed by the plethora of well meaning advice. Get ready for a little bit more.
Babies are just like aliens in my opinion. They are not from our world. They don’t know our rules. They don’t know the difference between night and day. They also have some kind of obscene fascination with the middle of the night. Before my baby was born, I had only a passing acquaintance with 3 a.m. and I was pretty happy with that passing acquaintance. After the baby came along – I got to know 3 a.m. intimately and no one, especially not the baby, asked me if I even wanted to,
From Sleepy Angel to Hyperactive Hooligan
Your baby is going to go from a sleepy angel to a hyperactive hooligan who seems hyped up on too much caffeine. They can suddenly become lethargic and then immediately flip that switch to cranky little tyrant. You can’t predict it – in fact in the first two weeks to two months – you are being graded on a curve you don’t even know much less understand. You’re learning about your baby. You are getting to know your baby.
You are going to learn the cues. You are going to learn the signs. You are going to learn that when baby rubs his or her eyes that they are five minutes away from flipping the switch to tiny tyrant. Your sleep is the last thing on the baby’s mind. You’ll have days where they won’t stay asleep for longer than 45 minutes at a shot and another day where they spend 10 hours sleeping with thirty minute intervals of waking up for eating, burping, changing and then right back to sleep again.
On the day your baby does this – take the hint and get some napping in for yourself. After the first three weeks or so, you and your baby are going to get into a rhythm with each other. You are going to learn their moods and what times of day they are at their best and when they need to go to sleep. You are going to be teaching them to take it easy and how to go sleep even when they don’t want to. You are going to start rediscovering sleep for yourself.
And when you and 3 a.m. get intimately reacquainted, remember – in a few short months – not even the length of time it took you to carry that wonderful bundle in your womb – you and your baby will be sleeping through the night again and you can look back at 3 a.m. the way you do an old college buddy – with passing fondness and no small measure of amusement before you can turn back over and go right back to sleep.
What were your first few weeks like with baby?
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