This month Case turned 6 months old, which is purely impossible seeing as how I just gave birth to him yesterday. But alas, his first half birthday has come and gone, and we have now entered into the wonderful phase of baby parenting that includes the joys of first solids and the sorrows of navigating sleep routines.
Until recently (like, as recently as this week) Case wouldn’t really sleep unless he was in my arms. He would nurse until he was content, and then slacken and unlatch in a quiet contented slumber. But if I tried to put him down, or even scoot him to be next to me, he would pop wide awake.
That’s how I rang in my 30th birthday, actually — lying on my couch nursing a sleeping Case — which I suppose is pretty appropriate.
It was precious. And lovely. But exhausting for me, because I have never been one to sit still for long periods of time, let alone lie down for long periods of time or nap. (I’ve always been too afraid to miss out on anything, you know? Extroversion be damned!) And sleeping while holding another person isn’t exactly comfortable or easy.
Because of my buzzing disposition coupled with the actual physical pain associated with lying still while holding a tiny person, Case’s little routine was hard to navigate. While my sweet baby snoozed into my ear, my twisted back would ache and I would get antsy and frustrated at these wasted moments that should have been spent organizing piles of laundry or cleaning dishes or writing blog posts but were instead spent in bed.
Things didn’t seem to be changing any time soon, so I eventually embraced it; when Case would get tired, I would line up a few of my favorite NPR podcasts on my phone, put in my earbuds, and snuggle in with him for the long haul.
After a while of doing this, I found that even I would doze off for a bit (any length of time between 20 minutes and a whole hour!) presumably because I’d finally let my expectations of anything else go.
It’s amazing how much can change in a week, though. In desperate exhaustion, I finally broke the news to Case that he’d have to learn to sleep on his own. Not only was I tired, but he was overtired as well, only getting in a catnap here or there throughout the day (usually snuggled up against me in my ring sling) and we both needed a change.
He responded pretty well to sleep training (better than I did, to be honest!) probably because he needed it so badly (even though he didn’t know he needed it) and now he sleeps relatively well by himself in his crib (teething and a gnarly sinus infection notwithstanding).
Only when I embraced the first frustrating stillness was I able to fall asleep. Only when Case embraced his crib was he truly able to rest. When our expectations changed, we witnessed the stuff of miracles.
Life is funny that way. We can want so badly for it to go one way but it doesn’t, and our expectations leave us downtrodden. But I’m finding that in this messy life, miracles happen more often than not. We just need to embrace them AS they come rather than HOW they come.
fueled by diet coke 