I am starting my personal sleep journey posts by talking about my eldest who was born in July 2018. This may be a several part post as it’s a long one! It may also be quite disjointed at the start as that sums up the start of my journey into motherhood 😅I had no idea what I was doing when he was born. He cried and I didn’t know what it meant. I read that you could learn what their different cries mean but they all sounded the same to me.
During the day, he just slept every time I breastfed him. Feeding sent him straight off to sleep and it was great. I felt I was winning at life with that superpower! I could go anywhere with him and send him to sleep within seconds. Looking back, he did just sleep whenever he wanted but he was also quite unhappy a lot of the time, he would never sit in the pram or trolley, he would scream having his nappy changed and he was quite hard work!! In hindsight, I wonder whether he was tired and needed more restorative sleep? Were all the small cat naps not actually helpful?
Overnight he would grunt…a lot! It never stopped so I would feed thinking those were his hunger signs. I remember getting a leaflet when he was born that showed pre-hunger cues and one was grunting! I never wanted him to get to the extreme crying stage as the leaflet said that makes them hard to calm them down. Overnight I’d feed, he would fall asleep and then he wouldn’t go back into his crib. He would cry every time I put him down. My husband and I used to take shifts. I would feed whilst my husband would sleep and then I’d pass him over to my husband to hold until he felt he could lie him down and the cycle would continue.
He never slept long overnight. I tried different swaddles, arms up, arms down, white noise. I thought I’d hit the jackpot with the white noise as I had an ‘Ollie the Owl’ machine and he fell asleep so much quicker with it on! As it was a battery operated machine, I bought rechargeable batteries as there was no chance I wanted it to go off overnight and have to find batteries 😅 it even had a cry sensor so it would turn on if he cried – winning! I bought multiple owls for grandparents’ houses, cars etc. However after working initially, it stopped working. He would cry, the owl would go on but he wouldn’t stop crying. The only thing that worked to stop him crying was feeding him back to sleep.
It was working and we were getting more sleep! Woke, fed, back down instantly. It’s natural – it’s fine.
Until he was waking every 20 minutes to be breastfed back to sleep. This went on for about 3 months. Then I didn’t feel fine at all. He was 6 months old at this point. I was severely sleep deprived and so tired I was falling asleep driving!!
I had the pro-breastfeeders telling me it was normal and natural. They will stop waking for feeds when they want to, keep feeding on demand! I had friends telling me to put him on formula as my milk wasn’t filling him up (he was a very big baby having gone from the 0.5th to 95th centile) and I even had one person tell me to take him to the doctor as there was clearly something wrong with him.
I muddled through, not knowing what else to do. Then came the biggest challenge – he wasn’t sleeping well during the day or night and didn’t just fall asleep whenever he wanted. I clearly remember being at a birthday party and a friend said, ‘ahh I remember mine being this small. Nobody told me they actually need to be put down to sleep’. I feel like this was a real lightbulb moment! I needed to put my son to sleep!
I researched different routines and methods and tried out different things until I found something that worked!! My son went from waking every 20 minutes to sleeping 11 hours 20 minutes in one night!!!
The next part of the story came when we moved him from a cot into a toddler bed. This was around 18 months which was early, but his new baby brother was arriving in 2 months and I wanted him to forget the cot in advance of the baby arriving. The transition was so smooth. He didn’t get out of bed at all!
Around 4 years old he was waking screaming like a possessed banshee! It was terrifying! He would scream that his legs hurt as well. He was diagnosed with hyper mobility and we tried to find a link between what he did that day and these night terrors. We couldn’t really find a link until I read that overheating can cause them! We made sure he wore lighter pyjamas and the night terrors stopped! Coincidence? Maybe! But it worked!
However, he did still wake from time to time crying (not screaming) which we thought was just age related. But when he failed his hearing tests and had grommets put in and his tonsils and adenoids out, he never woke again! The surgeon said he probably had obstructive sleep apnoea!
Now, as a 7 year old, he falls asleep beautifully, stays asleep and wakes when his sleep clock tells him he can wake up! He even went on a Beavers Scout camp and was absolutely fine!
Looking back, I went through SO much with my eldest, i’m not sure how I coped with that severe sleep deprivation but without his poor sleep, I wouldn’t be where I am today, helping hundreds of families every month get better sleep. So for that, I am very grateful! ❤️
