Sleep the Never Ending Struggle
If you are a parent who struggles or stresses around their child’s sleep, know you are not alone. From before Delilah was born and still to this day, her sleep is something that I continue to stress about and feel we need to work on. It’s still challenging because it feels like sleep struggles are centered around babies, and this is something we should have figured out by now. However, sleep is a dynamic situation, and every new stage has added changes and new challenges, even when we start to feel like we have it figured out.
Every parent knows that practicing safe sleep methods is incredibly important. Still, in my experience, I found that knowing the safe sleep methods and actually putting them to use are two wildly different concepts. As we were nearing the final week of pregnancy, we had Delilah’s bassinet set up next to our bed and ready to go with diapers and extra blankets so that everything was ready when our girl arrived. However, when we got home from the hospital things did not go quite as planned.
My memory is not quite so exact on the timeline of things (it is hard to form solid memories in a state of sleep deprivation), but very early on, we found it almost impossible to get her to sleep in the bassinet. We tried repeatedly but ended up in a loop where she would wake up as soon as we laid her down, or if she did sleep in her bassinet, we’d get maybe 30 minutes before she woke up. We kept trying this as long as we could, hoping she would get used to it, but nothing was working and exhaustion was getting the better of us. We had tried all the tricks I could find, like trying to soothe her while still in the bassinet and trying to lay her down, sleepy but awake, and had zero luck with either. Sleepy but awake became wide awake and crying the second we would lay her down.
Since she was not fond of her bassinet, we often held her during daytime naps. With everyone being home on lockdown, someone was always happy to get some baby cuddles while Delilah napped. We had been given a travel/co-sleeping bassinet at our baby shower but didn’t think we’d need it much, especially after the COVID-19 travel restrictions. It laid flat on the bed but had its own frame with breathable mesh sides and a firm pad on the bottom. I brought it out to try laying her down on the bed while I folded some laundry; to my surprise, she did really well in it. So well that we eventually started using it at night time as well. We knew it wasn’t a part of the safe sleep recommendations, but we adapted to be as safe as possible while also getting some sleep. We had the co-sleeper in between us in the bed, so there was no possibility of falling, and we used separate blankets so there wouldn’t be any fabric stretched across the bassinet. That started our continuous journey of co-sleeping. When she outgrew the bassinet, we tried transitioning her to her own bed, but still ended up co-sleeping for the majority of the time.
As much as it was nice to finally be getting more than an hour of sleep at a time, it was always a major cause of stress. Even though we were all happier, alert, and refreshed each day, I still felt so much shame that we ended up co-sleeping. No one was directly giving me a hard time, but I still felt upset because we weren’t doing things “the right way.” It was tough to talk about, and when the Doctors asked about sleep at her well-baby visits, I felt like I couldn’t be honest because I was scared they would give me a hard time about it. I felt like we needed to work on it continuously, and we tried repeatedly, even though all it did was add stress to our family.
It wasn’t until she was a toddler that we got anywhere regarding sleep. We had taken off the front of her crib and had our bed right against it, so she had her own space directly connected to our bed. Maybe it would have gone better from the get-go if we had gotten one of the bassinets that work like that, but hindsight is always 20/20. Reaching that point did help a lot because she had her own space, even though half the time, she would still roll over onto our bed throughout the night. That sleep method continued to work until it was time to transition her into her own toddler bed. We quickly learned that she was not going to sleep in her own room, so the toddler bed ended up in our room, and we used that with very slow-going success. She had and still does have trouble falling asleep in her own bed. She feels safest falling asleep wherever her dad and I are. Most nights, she’d fall asleep sitting with one of us, and then we’d move her to her bed, and only occasionally would she stay in her bed the entire night. Most nights, she would wake up at almost the same time and walk over and climb into our bed.
As she got older, we would talk to her about sleeping in her own room, and a few times, she would be excited to try. Each time she tried, though, she would get really scared when she woke up, and for a little while, she didn’t want anything to do with her room at all. It wasn’t until very recently, with the move, that we could make any progress. We used it as an opportunity to get her used to her own room right from the beginning, and for the first week or so, we all slept in what would be her room. When we eventually moved our bed out, her bed stayed in her room, and she did really well with it. She still prefers falling asleep sitting next to one of us on the couch, and she still wakes up in the night and walks to our room, but every step towards her fully sleeping in her room is a victory, no matter how small of a step. Right now, we are working on getting her more comfortable falling asleep in her bed rather than on the couch and being moved. We think feeling comfortable falling asleep in her bed will ultimately help her be able to fall back asleep in her bed when she wakes up in the night. It’s really helped that we’ve talked to her about it, and she is excited about trying and even looks forward to her bedtime routine some nights. We’re working on refinishing and getting her big girl bed ready for her before winter, and the whole process has got her so excited about sleeping in her own room!
I am all for doing things as safely as possible, and I still think it’s important to follow safe sleep practices. However, I also now understand that balance is possible. It’s hard sometimes to know and always do what’s best for your family, especially with conflicting information and shame being so rampant in the parenting community. Part of it came from my own fear and stress, but I really wished that it felt acceptable to be open and comfortable with what was working best for our family.
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