Typical Night

I drag my heels when it comes to going to bed. Once I go to bed, the night has begun, and the night time is a bad time. Since I'm up 5 or 10 times a night, I should probably be asleep by 9 or so, but I can never manage to do so. I try to be in bed by 9:30 and asleep by 10, or at least with lights off by 10, but then the night begins.

It's dark. It's time to sleep. I try to relax my body and my mind, but the fear is never far away. How long is this quiet going to last? When will I hear Nora? Forget about it, try to go to sleep. I toss and turn and my thoughts spin and I try to ignore the vague dread that lurks in the remote corners of my mind. Just relax. Eventually, sometimes 10 minutes later, sometimes two hours later, I drift off.

I am floating along in the quiet land of dreamless sleep. I am deep under water. It is peaceful and quiet and delicious. Then Nora starts to fuss and call out and whimper. My body is instantly jerked awake. I am flooded with adrenaline. I am immediately wide awake and anxious, my heart is racing, I can feel it beating in my chest. I put on my glasses and jump out of bed and go into the nursery. Nora is thrashing around. I can't see very well, but I can see her unhappy mouth, a rectangular shape of blackness as she moans and cries. I try to give her a pacifier but she has figured this trick out, and she knows that a pacifier means that I will leave her side. So she refuses the pacifier, angrily pushes it away, turns her head, cries harder.

I pat her chest softly and tell her to relax, it's okay, it's okay Nora, just relax, it's time to go back to sleep. She calms down a little bit but keeps fussing. I keep patting. Nora starts to get more upset. I step away from the crib, take a few steps away, and Nora almost immediately quiets down. She learned this in about half an hour one night. I had sat in the glider next to the crib and taken any opportunity where she quieted down for just a second to approach her crib, praise her for calming herself down, and comfort her. That one night she learned that if she quiets down, I will come back. But what does this get me? It doesn't teach her to put herself to sleep. I have to go back, so I do, and I pat her chest again, and whisper that it's okay, and it's time to go to sleep. Now Nora is no longer crying and she is calm enough to accept the pacifier. She turns onto her side, her signal that she is ready to try to go to sleep.

I rub her back for a little while. She is still awake. Is she going to go back to sleep? I can't tell. Either she will go back to sleep, in which case it's worth it for me to go back to bed, or she'll stay awake and fuss and cry every 5-10 minutes, in which case it's a lot easier to just stay up. She remains calm, and on her side. She seems like maybe she is going to go back to sleep. I slowly back away from the crib. I back out of the room. She is still quiet. I slip into bed, and take off my glasses, and try to calm my racing heart. I'm alert but tired, and it only takes a few minutes to fall back asleep.

Jerked awake again. Nora is crying. It's 10 minutes after I returned to bed. I go through the whole routine again, calming her in the crib, trying not to pick her up, hoping that somehow she will magically learn some day to put herself back to sleep because at least I'm not picking her up and rocking her to sleep. She is falling asleep in the crib, at least, albeit with a little help. Nora calms down again. I go back to bed again. I fall asleep.

Jerked awake again. It's 20 minutes later. I go back in and soothe Nora again. She turns on her side and seems to be going back to sleep, but is she really? I can't tell. But she's not moving. I check my email. Oddly I have 3 new messages even though it's the middle of the night. I listen and don't hear anything. I go back to bed.

Jerked awake. It's 20 minutes later again. I go back into the nursery and as I soothe Nora my mind revisits the same questions over and over again, the same questions I ponder every night. Should I let her cry? Should I get rid of the pacifier? Should I cut out the night feeding? Or should I just nurse her every time she cries? No, I did that for a while a few weeks back and it didn't cut back on the waking, so it can't be hunger. Maybe it's time to let her cry. No, I can't do that. She's getting the rest of her shots in a few days and she's going to need me then. After that we're going on a small trip, so I can't let her cry in a strange place. And after that we're going on another trip for a week, and again it doesn't seem fair to let her cry in a strange place. So that means I have to wait until we're back home for a while. That means waiting until August. I can't wait until August. I can't keep doing this. I can't. How am I supposed to function? How am I supposed to do my job, to think, to write articles? It's hard enough to write on a full night's sleep, how can I possibly muster the proper amount of concentration on almost no sleep? I can't even remember my keys on most days, how am I supposed to get tenure? This is it. I am never going to get tenure because I can't even work properly, because I haven't slept in 6 months. God. I haven't slept in 6 months. This is insane! I can't do this! This is so unfair, Jake is sleeping through all of this, I can't handle this! I can't do it!

Nora is falling back asleep. I go back to bed. I fall asleep.

Jerked awake. It's 15 minutes later. I go back into the nursery. Nora is crying and refusing the pacifier. I am angry. I want to pound the crib with my fists. I tell myself, don't do it. Don't pound the crib with your fists. That will just scare Nora and it won't make you feel any better. It will just make it more likely that you will react in anger again next time. I don't pound the crib with my fists. I step away from the nursery for a few seconds. Nora quiets down. I return to her crib while she is still quiet. I tell her what a great job she did there, calming herself down like that. She seems really tired. She accept the pacifier and turns onto her side. I worry. I think, she can't keep waking like this. She has been awake most of the night, and this can't be good for her. What am I going to do?

I go back to bed. I fall asleep.

Jerked awake. Nora is crying. It's an hour later, and it's after 2 a.m. so at this point I can nurse her. My arbitrary rule is to nurse Nora if it's after 2 a.m. but not before, because when I do it before 2 a.m. I just have to keep nursing her again and again throughout the night, and it doesn't seem to help her any more than simply soothing her in the crib. So I rush to the crib and immediately pick Nora up and she starts nursing. She nurses for 10 or 15 minutes. She is very sleepy now. I change her diaper, and hold her over my shoulder and pat her back until she burbs. I gently place her down in the crib, and she rolls onto her side and goes to sleep. I feel relieved. At this stage of the night she'll probably sleep for 2 or 3 hours. I go back to bed. I have a hard time falling asleep. Eventually, I drift off.

Jerked awake. Body flooded with adrenaline. It's 4:45 a.m. I've been asleep for 2 hours and 15 minutes. Nora is fussing and rolling around in the crib. I go in and pat her belly and she falls asleep fairly quickly. I go back to bed.

Jerked awake. It's 6:15. No, this is too early. Please don't tell me the day is going to start at 6:15. What happened until sleeping until 7? I go into the nursery. Milo is awake and mumbling to himself. Nora is half awake and fussing. I give them both pacifiers, I tell them to go back to sleep, I go back to bed. I think, I'm not getting up until I hear crying. I fall back asleep.

6:30. I hear some talking. No crying. I drift in and out of sleep, listening to this for a while. By 6:45 things are starting to ramp up instead of down, so I give in and get up.* Another night over. As I feed the babies and get them ready for the day, the fog of the night disappears and I feel better. I think, I didn't think I could do it, but I did it again. For another night, I did it, and I didn't lose my temper. I can keep doing this, I guess. But I still don't know what we're going to do about Nora's lousy sleep.

*Alternate ending every other day or so: Jake gets up instead, and I put a pillow over my head. I try to trust that he can handle everything, which of course he can, and I sleep for another delicious couple of hours.