Exhausted mom makeover

“I can’t sleep well with our baby in our room because all her little noises keep me up. But I don’t yet have the confidence to move her into her own room.” 

Babies are noisy at night—even when they’re sleeping—and women are often more attuned to those sounds than men are, says Lisa Spiegel of Soho Parenting, an organization that helps parents and their infants with  sleep problems, among other issues. It’s not uncommon, she adds, for Mom to feel enraged when Dad wakes up the next morning refreshed, while she’s exhausted from being up every hour.

Spiegel tells me that a baby four months or older is ready to be introduced to a sleep routine. But when she suggests that I start putting Nina down for the night at 6:30 or 7pm, I almost laugh out loud. “I get home at six,” I tell her. “Nina needs to be fed and bathed, and that leaves me no time to interact and play with her.” 

Spiegel concedes a half hour. I still feel that’s unreasonable, though she points out that bathing and feeding aren’t just “custodial,” but are loving interactions between parent and baby. I think of how Nina and I gaze at each other when she’s feeding and how she giggles in the bathtub when I pour the warm water over her and wrap her up in a snuggly towel. Then I have another worry: If I put her down at 7:30pm, she’s going to be up for good by 4 or 5am. Spiegel says it’s a myth that the earlier your baby goes to bed, the earlier she’ll wake up. When I mention that Nina still regularly wakes for a 3am feeding, she responds that a baby who weighs at least 12 pounds is capable of sleeping 12 uninterrupted hours. When Nina awakens in the night at this age, she should be learning to soothe herself back to sleep.  

I’m skeptical, but I agree to give her plan a try. Spiegel says that in the beginning I can still feed Nina if she wakes up at night, but that I should gradually reduce the amount of formula I give her.

Since I’m anxious about transitioning Nina from her bassinet in our room to her own crib, Spiegel comes up with a temporary plan. Nina gets topped off with a couple of ounces of milk before bedtime and goes down by 7:30pm in her own crib. We go to our bedroom. If and when she does wake up before morning (meaning 6am or later), we should feed Nina the smaller amount we discussed and bring her into the bassinet in our bedroom until we feel more confident. The goal, to be achieved within a month, is to leave her in her own crib the entire night, without an additional feeding.

We give the plan a try, with some adjustments. No matter how hard we try to get Nina down sooner, she just doesn’t seem ready at 7:30pm, and neither are we—we relish the extra time playing with her. We do, however, start feeding her less at nighttime awakenings, and she’s none the worse for it. (However, we set our bar at 4am rather than 6am). We also let her fuss and cry a little until she falls back to sleep on her own.  

I mention to Spiegel that our nursery faces a courtyard with a loud gate and that I think it will awaken Nina during the night. She tells me that until it’s proven, I shouldn’t assume what will and won’t awaken a baby. Babies can sleep through many kinds of sounds, she says, and it’s important that they learn to—a perfectly silent bedroom is a rare thing, especially  in the city. I discover that she’s right when I start putting Nina in her own crib for daytime naps (baby steps). The gate clangs, and she snoozes peacefully away. 

I now feel empowered about deciding what’s right for my child, something that Spiegel says so many parents today are afraid to do. “To resist taking on the role of being a parent and being in charge is so common in this generation,” she says, “and it creates an imbalance that gives kids too much power.” Yes, we still go to Nina when she cries and feed her before 6am, but we also let her try to soothe herself back to sleep in her own crib, and we stick to an 8pm bedtime. Although that may not seem like a big accomplishment, it’s the start of setting healthy boundaries for her and giving her the confidence she needs to become a good sleeper. Come six months, I know I’ll be ready to turn off that monitor and trust that Nina can settle herself into safe, deep sleep. (Soho Parenting; a personalized sleep plan, including a pre-visit sleep history questionnaire, costs $250; sohoparenting.com).