The Mother's Dilemma
To sleep or not to sleep...
Sleep when baby sleeps. That’s what they tell you. And do the dishes. And think about what to make for dinner. Check baby’s breathing. Check your emails. Wait, what is that sound she’s making? Is that normal?
Sleep deprivation does crazy things to you. There’s a reason they use it as a form of torture, I suppose.
I remember, in those early newborn days, hearing Aerosmith in my head constantly, like this mantra of mother’s guilt. “And I don’t wanna miss a tha-ang,” I would mumble, as my eyes closed begrudgingly. And then within minutes, maybe seconds even, my eyes would snap open again for fear of missing something. Of losing connection to this little squish monster.
Between tracking her every movement, nursing around the clock, and singing every possible show tune I could think of to keep her from crying, there was no space to even notice how tired I actually was. How tired we all were.
And like I said, sleep deprivation does crazy things to you. I started to have anxiety attacks anytime I had to leave the house with her. I had this fear that if she cried in public, someone would rush in from stage left and take her away from me. Or that my in-laws would discover that [gasp!] I had never taken care of a newborn before and they would, well, take her away from me.
There was this persistent feeling that I didn’t deserve her. This pure, whole, magical being. And that she didn’t like me very much. I mean, she cried constantly. Although it’s tough to accurately pull that out of the memory bank when you’re looking through sleepless-coloured glasses. So who knows, maybe she only cried on one day. One really, really long day.
At some point, we realized we needed help. We needed what social media tells me is a “village” in which to raise this child.
We started by asking our midwives - after all, they helped us bring her into the world. Surely they must know what to do once we got her? They referred us to the postpartum counsellor at the local hospital. It was going to be an 8-week wait.
This child had been alive for 4 weeks. Which had felt like 400. There was not a chance in hell that I was going to make it 8 more weeks in this condition. Not in a way that would be healthy for any of us. I am beyond grateful that we were able to get in with a private counsellor (especially in this kind-of-still-post-apocalyptic world), and that we were able to put together some semblance of a village, but it had to start with asking for help.
This is not a skill that either my husband or I came by naturally. We were of the “figure it out on your own, honey” generation - you know, that beautiful moment in history when you had to wait for dial-up and there were no apps to tell you how many wet diapers you should change in a day. It was hard - asking for help felt like admitting defeat so early in the game. But at the end of the day [and those days felt looooooooonnng], it was clear to us that it was the only way through.
So ask for help we did. In small sips, because we’re both stubborn AF and needed some time to step into this part. It started with the private counsellor - who taught us to do lunges to keep her from crying. Far better than the constant show tunes, at least for our neighbours [and for my glutes]. She encouraged us to share our struggles with our families, which we didn’t really do until much later. That still felt really hard.
She also shared this fun fact that changed everything for us:
It can take parents a year to develop a bond with their newborns.
One. Whole. Fucking. Year.
Sorry for the expletive, but when I found that out, I was simultaneously enraged and relieved. No one told us that. It wasn’t in any of the prenatal books we read, no one brought it up in any of the classes we took…not one doctor or nurse thought to slip that into a conversation during any of our hundred visits. The anger was real.
But so was the relief. I no longer needed to spend every second of this child’s life awake, in the off-chance that she might open her eyes and think that I’m not connected to her because I dared to sleep. Perchance to dream.
After that, asking for help got a little easier each time. As a pattern of sleep returned, I was able to see a little bit clearer, to actually notice the changes day to day in our little lady.
I don’t want to fall asleep ‘cause I’d miss you, baby. But it turns out that I was missing everything anyway - so might as well sleep.
sending big love and deep breaths, abby
P.S. If you’re a new momma and you’re reading this, I hope you take three things away:
Stop reading this. Go sleep. You deserve it.
If you’re still reading… Permission granted to ask for help. People want to offer it, but they don’t know what to do…except to hold the baby. And that can sure be useful when you want to take a nap. Or a shower.
Try the squats to stop the baby from crying. It sucks but it’s worth it.