Parenting

The nights with a baby

I wanted to title this post ‘the nights’ but I realised that wouldn’t have provided much context to the post, but ‘the nights’ is really what this post is all about.

If you have a baby or have had a baby I’m sure that you will know what I mean by the phrase ‘the nights’. So instead of writing a how to guide on how to deal with the nights with a newborn, here’s my account of ‘the nights’ to hopefully help you or provide you with reassurance that it’s not just you, but also to make me feel like I’m not the only one dealing with frequent wakenings and dreading this time of day.

So let me take you back to the nights with my first born, my daughter, she is now three, but the nights were hard. She would wake every hour, I would see every hour and she would often be awake from 2am until 4.30am every single night. The four month sleep regression hit us like a ton of bricks, so much so that I googled the hell out of it and know exactly why babies have this regression at four months old. The only thing to break the cycle of this sleep regression was to go hardcore with sleep training, to eventually stop feeding and to completely change our bedtime routine. During this time coffee became my best friends, long walks around Hilly Fields saved my sanity, and I also set up this blog…..maybe to give me something to do whilst I was up every night with my daughter.

But back to reality. The four month sleep regression honestly scares me. I know what it’s like. I know what it’s like to feel sleep deprived and the want to be laying in your bed whilst you rock and will your child to sleep. I know how frustrating and soul destroying it in when you finally think they are asleep in your arms and you go to put them back into their cot only for their eyes to ping open or for that wail or cry to emerge. I have one word for the four month sleep depression…..hell.

I know how lonely it feels, when you feel like you are only the person awake in the entire world as you hear your partner snoring in the background, or you hear the first plane going into the Heathrow every single morning. It’s honestly a bit like groundhog day as you dread the day ahead.

I’ve been there, and it’s for that reason that I’m beginning the dread the nights now with my son. That all too familiar feeling of waking up and feeding him back to sleep is happening, and I know that we are heading head first into the four month sleep regression. I’ve not slept for more than two to three hours straight in about 120 days and I don’t really know how I will cope on any less sleep each night.

We may be lucky and not encounter this sleep regression, it may just be a phase that my son is going through. It may only last a couple of weeks compared to months with my daughter. I am trying to be much more relaxed about the whole thing, but that still doesn’t stop me from worrying as I know how awful it was the first time round. You will secretly find me thinking about things I could do during the waking hours just in case we do encounter this regression….I could work or write blog posts or buy pointless things on Amazon..

Whatever happens I know that it will pass eventually, and I know that they are only young once so I should treasure the extra cuddles, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling the fear of ‘the nights’.

How about you? How do you find the nights with a baby? Or do you dread ‘the nights’?

Claire

 

One Comment

  • Rachael

    Ugh. I am dreading the sleep regression too, I remember it well from my first born! I am enjoying a good 7 hours sleep a night now and I don’t want that to change!

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