The newborn phase is tough. Sleepless nights; waking every three or so hours; operating in a haze of confusion and anger; hating my husband for not being able to bear and birth children (I mean come on…my body goes to shit and he complains about putting on a couple of “sympathy” pounds). Not to mention breastfeeding was the hardest fucking thing I’ve ever done.
But then, they grow out of it. And they start sleeping longer stretches, eventually through the night. And you breathe a sigh of relief.
Ha.
Don’t exhale too long mama. Because real shit hits the fan when your toddler is going through a sleep regression. It makes all the crying, in the beginning, seem like mere whispers. There is NOTHING worse than a child crying out your name. You thought it was bad when they cried because they didn’t have words. In fact, there were many times Matt and I would just look at our babies and in frustration wish they had words to tell us what was wrong.
Words don’t do shit (and that’s coming from a blog author). They just make it worse. Now when they can’t go to sleep, they can scream out “MAMA,” “NO SLEEP,” and “BABA,” in between their wails and incoherent crying. Not to mention the fact that as they grow older the decibel level of their screams increase (I get notifications from my watch to warn me about repeated exposure to volumes at that decibel range when I’m near my daughter during a temper tantrum…thanks for the update, Apple).
When Aria was eighteen months old, she went through a terrible sleep regression. Each night, she’d be fine when we put her down, and then once we left the room she would scream unnaturally.
Matt and I were fucking exhausted. There was nothing we could do. Every time we went in to try and make it better, we just made it worse. So, we just let her fucking scream. While her screaming stopped shortly after she realized we weren’t coming back in, her silent protest began.
She remained standing at her crib for what seemed like hours (realistically maybe only ten minutes max). Matt and I anxiously watched the monitor, trying to figure out what the right move was, like the rest of fucking parenthood.
And she just stood.
And stood.
And stood.
What a fucking protest it was.
Her eyes started closing. She started swaying. Eventually, she lost her footing and fell. I screamed! Luckily she missed the edge of the crib and plopped onto the mattress. Watching her try to get back up was like watching a drunk friend try to get up after falling at a bar. Arms flailing, tripping over herself, and finally grabbing the railing. She made it back up miraculously, only to realize that she was tired. No fucking shit, kid.
She laid back down to sleep.
