Let’s be honest: sleep loss comes with the territory of being new parents. However, for some reason, despite the many warnings of how much sleep we would lose, we thought our baby would be an exception to this rule and that he would inherit my sleep habits.
He didn’t.
We quickly learned that he was no exception to this rule. With that being said, we became just another set of sleepless parents, exhausted beyond exhaustion and sharing our horror stories of how our son refuses to sleep — ever. On average, a child my son's age (15 months) should sleep around 11.5 uninterrupted hours at night and 2 to 2.5 hours of sleep during the day. My son sleeps 8-9 hours at night, and I’m lucky to get him to sleep a full hour throughout the day. I’ll be honest: although he doesn’t sleep through the night uninterrupted, there have been a few spurts where he has, which has given me false hope each time that I have survived the sleepless nights and my time has finally come to sleep more than 4 consecutive hours.
Disclaimer: I’ve been wrong each time.
First of all, no one told me there would be sleep regressions, and it turns out that there is a sleep regression at 4, 8, 11, 18 months and 2 years that each parent should at least try to be prepared for. Those tentative dates, of course, aren’t including growth spurts or teething, which are entirely different monsters and coincidentally happen between regressions, reassuring that your days of sleepless nights continue.
Just when we thought it was safe to embrace sleep again and function like regular human beings, we were quickly reminded who the true boss is around here. Because, I mean, who doesn’t want to go back and forth between sleep and insomnia? It’s the best.. I’m talking about the 18 month sleep regression here — it started a little early for us and immediately sent us time traveling back to his first few weeks home. Only this time no one was offering to watch him so we could sleep..
When our son would occasionally sleep through the night, I let myself think that we had somehow finally created a “good sleeper.” And then one night, out of nowhere, instead of peacefully sleeping, he was wide awake and screaming, and by screaming I mean my neighbors down the street definitely lost sleep and probably thought a crime was being committed. The screaming went on for hours, nothing would calm him. We tried pacifiers, bottles, rocking, bouncing, singing, music, white noise, car rides, baths, showers. Nothing worked. He would cry until he physically couldn’t anymore, and this happened every 1-3 hours from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., each night for a few weeks. Suddenly, we were those parents that were questioning if we were bad parents and doing something wrong, the parents up at 4 a.m. staring absentmindedly at the wall rocking a screaming child for two entirely too long horrendous hours.
Exhausted, confused and having no idea what possibly was going on, I did my research. After searching a few varieties of “why won’t my baby sleep” combinations, and speaking with a fellow mommy friend, I quickly realized that I wasn’t alone and it turns out that around 4, 8, 11, 18 months and 2-years-old, babies' sleep patterns change. The babies ability to fall asleep and stay asleep becomes like that of an adult. As a result, sleep regression. Although this means that the child is developing normally, from a parent’s perspective it is as if they are regressing back to their newborn sleep pattern and nights go from fairly easy and structured to unpredictable and nearly impossible.
Sleep regression sucks, there is no other way to explain it. We couldn’t move, breath loudly or basically show any sign of life without our son being wide eyed and either screaming or just refusing to sleep altogether. All of this took its toll on our new little family. We were exhausted and crabby most of the time. During our son's first few sleep regressions I was a stay-at-home-mom, but taking 18 credit hours and my fiance worked 40 hours a week while also taking 18 credit hours of school. I felt like a bad mom because my only job was to be his mom and I couldn’t figure out how to make him fall asleep — I mean, he was a baby, I thought sleeping was supposed to be easy for babies?
Wrong.
I also felt like a bad person because the whole thing stressed me out so much that I didn’t feel like a person anymore and I wasn’t able to maintain my positive attitude while also juggling and trying to balance school, life, my son and my fiance. And then I felt even worse because I let my exhaustion and frustration make caring for him during the day harder than usual, thus resulting in getting less done during the day and essentially just keeping him fed, clean and dry.
I found myself breaking down more and more, becoming a daily occurrence. I seemed to be caught in an endless circle of exhaustion and frustration; terrified to make the slightest change in our daily routine in fear that it would just make sleep even more unattainable than it already was. Although I was slightly conflicted at times because he was so adorable in his pajamas and how can you be mad, really? But, all I wanted to do was cry with my son when he would wake up screaming because I felt helpless and desperate. I will admit that I have cried more than a handful of times, but I’ve also let my frustration win and there have been times where I had to just lay him down and walk away for a few minutes. I can count on two fingers the amount of times I have had to step away. I always have striven to be a parent who shows compassion for my son when he is going through something difficult and needs me. He may only be 15 months old, but I never want there to be a day where he thinks I’m not there for him or won’t be there when he is sad or needs me.
I can’t remember how long each regression lasted; all I know is that they took way longer than I ever expected each one of them to last. Although he still doesn’t sleep through the night, he did gradually begin to wake less, and stay awake for shorter periods of time while also learning to make himself fall back asleep without help from me. He eventually went back to his normal self after each regression and I once again started to feel like a mom who could function and I’m doing my best to do what is best for all involved. Parenting is hard, sleep regression sucks and being tired makes it hard to function, but as a parent you do what you have to do to keep your baby happy. It isn’t always pretty or easy, but it is one of those things that each parent goes through and learns to do whatever it is that they have to do to keep going. After all, you are now a part of a very elite group of parents who have been there and done that.
