Note: this was actually written in week 2 but I didn’t finish writing it until now, so take that into context.
Last night was tough, Clara.
I was ready to go to sleep at 8, but you were awake as can be at 8, and at 9, and at 10, and at 11, and at 12, and at 1 and at 2. Like Papá says – two dark plates staring back at me. It was impossible to get you to stay asleep for more than a few minutes.
We use cloth diapers when we’re not doing elimination communication, but because we’ve had so much trouble with you sleeping at night, we tried disposables. You were on a manic cycle that looked like: feed, burp, spit up, wail, pee. We went through 4 disposables in 15 minutes and your fragile newborn skin was not having it. You turned red all around the edges of the diapers, and it was time for another solution.
Last night you tried out what seemed like a fake cry also. It was inconsolable, and you made a wailing sound. You weren’t always hungry despite wanting to root and suck on your hand. You’d take two sucks on the breast and then look around wide eyed and panicked. Sometimes you’d feed, and then you’d get uncomfortable while trying to fall asleep and ultimately the diaper change would entirely wake you up.
So no disposables. At least not the hospital ones.
Its those 2a crying sessions that get ya in motherhood.
The exhaustion of the day culminates in an inconsolable state for both of us. I had some negative thoughts. I felt frustrated. I wanted to put you down and just let you cry.
I couldn’t do it. I kept telling myself, saying out loud – I can’t do this right now. I can’t do this alone. I even told your dad.
Your father, try as he might, kept falling asleep, and like you in your afternoon naps, he was at times impossible to fully wake.
So it was just the two of us and my negative thoughts.
Your lips quivered softly on my breast. Each time I try to pull away, the sucking begins again only to stop nearly a minute later.
I was exhausted. I was out of milk, and so incredibly tired and sore. My eyes hurt, and I had a cluster headache behind one of them.
I felt resentment that I was feeling this way alone. It felt insurmountably impossible to meet your needs in the moment.
So I decided, ok – I need to wake up and deal with this situation. Even if she doesn’t sleep, I still need to feed her and take care of her hygiene needs. I still need to try to get her to sleep. If she sleeps on my chest, so be it. I just need to stay awake.
So I went downstairs to the sofa. I turned on the lights to keep myself awake and I put on a movie.
I broke my negative thought pattern.
I told myself that it is impossible and unhelpful for me to think in such a negative frame of mind. Because you’re here, and you have needs, and you’re a living little human for whom we are solely responsible. I’m proud of myself for breaking my thought pattern. One day you’ll learn about emotional regulation, and I hope you’re able to do this too.
I was finally open to creative solutions.
I found that spreading you out a bit more helped with the trapped air circulating through your digestive tract. Moving your body ever so gently when it felt helpful – going from on my lap to on the shoulder. Patting your lower back and working up towards your shoulders. I held you at angles and avoiding a hunched position.
I looked up the witching hour, and how to help with reflux. I found out that it’s best to hold you upright for 20-30 minutes after a feed. I learned that your new cry could be a warning sign for needing to pee or poop.
Low and behold, you slept for a stretch.
I held you on my chest after burping you, all curled up. One of your tiny hands with delicate chubby ceramic doll fingers spread out on the fleshy part of my chest with my breast as a nice cushion for your head.
Side note- don’t take this the wrong way, Clara, but you remind me sometimes of a rhesus monkey. They’re a popular topic in classic psychology on maternal contact, although the experiments, like most in the 1950s, are incredibly sad. You make some of the same faces, you have some of the same gestures, and movements. I feel this especially to be true when you’re curled up on my chest or when your startle reflex enacts. It’s clearer to me than ever in motherhood how closely tied to monkeys we are evolutionarily.
We’ll get better at this.
You’ll get better at sleeping. You’ll get accustomed to the silence and stillness of our room at night, even if the TV and talking and bouncing around lulls you during the day. You’ll get better at digesting and keeping food down. We’ll figure out the best way to keep you comfortable at night without unnecessarily waking you up for a diaper change.
I’ll get better at this. I’ll learn your cues better, even knowing they’ll change. I’ll learn the tricks of transitioning you from one space to another. I’ll sleep more during the day while I’m on leave to buy myself some headspace.
Day by day, my little monkey.
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