Sleeping Through the Night?

When people talk about the difficulties of parenting an infant, the first thing that’s generally discussed is what happens at night. Having survived the first year of nighttime parenting and getting ready to go there again in less than six months, I want to record some thoughts and observations I picked up this year to remind myself as I go through it again and to share with others who are in the trenches.

Sleep has always been an idol for me. I’m not a morning person. I slept through more than one exam (and once, a final!) in college because sleep overcame me, in spite of setting multiple alarms. I’ve also slept through hurricanes and riots, but who’s keeping score? I hated the sleep interruptions being big and pregnant brought and I dreaded nighttime parenting long before Kate made her debut.

God made infants incredibly light sleepers. Not only are their sleep cycles much shorter, giving them more opportunities to rouse, they go through twice as much light, active (REM) sleep as adults do. This may be a mystery to you akin to “why do mosquitoes exist?” but God designed them this way to help them survive.

Light sleeping accounts for less SIDS death, as studies have show babies sometimes wake and cry because they are having difficulty breathing. Moving, the crying itself, as well as being picked up can all help them to breathe. Babies wake because they are too hot or cold, which can also contribute to SIDS and other causes of infant death. But the most common cause of newborns waking is hunger. Babies stomachs are the size of their fists. Think about that when you look at those tiny infant hands! A bigger stomach would lead to poorer digestion, more reflux, etc. Kate didn’t have reflux, but I’ve known many babies who have and for whom xantac and a dairy-free diet for mom was the only way they weren’t losing it all day and all night long. Those tiny stomachs empty quickly and the first several months they need to be filled all night long. The need is so critical, a lot of doctors will tell you to wake a baby under eight weeks old to feed them if they sleep longer than five hours, even in the middle of the night.

But their stomachs get bigger and they start to sleep longer. Kate met the clinical definition of “sleeping through the night” at about eight weeks. Personally, I do not consider sleeping five hours to be “sleeping through the night” but we were pleasantly surprised to have her usually going seven or more hours in her first stretch of sleep by about ten weeks. That was without any crying-it-out or sleep-training techniques other than playing the same CD on repeat while she slept (then, it was Lullaby by Julian Lloyd Webber, but she’s ditched that for How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb months ago. They grow up fast.) From three to six months, she slept decently, going to bed at 8 and waking at 3 or 4 and then 6 and then 8 to eat. A lot of nights she made it to 5 and then 8. I was getting used to that, enjoying it, thinking “I can do this!”

Then, teeth. The second six months were full of night waking for teething difficulties. She had a growth spurt here and there and one ear infection, but really, it was all about the teeth. Some parents say things like “oh! I didn’t realize Johnny was teething until I saw that tooth pop right through!” This statement ranks right up there with, “oh, I got nauseous once in the morning and felt like I was going to throw up, but then I ate a cracker” on the you have no idea scale. If your child never goes through a second round of frequent nightwaking, that’s terrific. But studies show that even in the United States, with our huge emphasis on sleep training, the majority of children do not sleep six or more hours through the night their first year of life, so be prepared for it to happen.

Teething really bothered Kate for eight weeks or more before the debut of each little bugger. Luckily, the time often overlapped. We tried Motrin and Tylenol, they didn’t sustain her any longer than homeopathic Hyland’s teething tablets. She just woke up three to five times a night, screaming in pain, holding her gums with one hand and sometimes yanking on her ear with the other. She would see the Hyland’s bottle and quiet to a whimper, knowing relief was soon at hand.

I’ve mentioned before that my philosophy of parenting an infant is that I am serving one of the least of these, a sister in Christ, as if I am serving Christ himself. Developmentally, infants are not capable of manipulation. The people who still claim that have no medical or psychological training. Yes, I believe infants inherit sin nature, but that doesn’t mean that their every action that parents don’t want them to have is sinful. Only in the past month have I seen Kate express real desires as opposed to needs. When she has needs, I attend to them.

For the past several weeks, she’s slept ten to thirteen hours every night. She’s still getting teeth, but I think her poor little body has adjusted to the constant oral pain. I know there are some who would say that if we had left her to cry it out, she would have dealt with it and learned to self soothe. Maybe. But I wouldn’t trade the opportunity to serve and comfort my child. Mike was a huge help in this as well, pulling his share of nighttime support duties.

All this to say, I think God designed small children to wake a lot. Whether this is just a survival mechanism or also a way to allow parents to serve their children and children to feel secure that when they have a need, their parents are there, I don’t know. It’s a mystery. I’m going to enjoy the sleep while it lasts and know that when this phase comes again at Christmastime, it won’t last forever.