Patience, sweet patience

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It’s no secret that I’ve had some difficulites adjusting to motherhood. Why, some might say this fact is the over-arching theme of this blog.

But reality is shifting here in Pitter Land. Finally. Finally.

Again, this might not be a surprise to long-time readers, but this shift is largely sleep-related and the fact that we’re all getting more of it. One night last week, Pitter didn’t wake me up to nurse until 5 am. This means he slept from 8pm to 5am without waking up once, and I had 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep myself. I’ll admit he hasn’t repeated this excellence since, but it gives me hope. Pitter’s love for the boob has not decreased at all, but he nurses for much less time these days, which also allows me a little more freedom (eg, less time sitting on my butt in a chair).

Pitter is also going to sleep at night more easily.* He doesn’t nurse to sleep, but instead requires that I lay with him in bed (ahem, our bed) until he’s out cold. This requirement is of course partially related to my and Sweet Cheeks’ refusal to leave him alone in the room where he will cry hysterically for hours.

A month ago, this little routine of laying down with him every night drove me nuts. I didn’t handle the transition to the new system well from our year-long practice of watching evening TV for as long as I wanted while Pitter nursed himself to sleep on my lap. The new sans-boob method takes anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour and a half for Pitter to settle down in bed. It sounds idiotic, but I was missing TV shows! I was missing precious alone time with Sweet Cheeks! Furthermore, I had to fight sleep myself at the hour of 7:45 while quietly pretending to sleep in a dark room while I waited for Pitter to wind down. Sometimes I lost the war and fell asleep along with him at 8:30. What little adult life I had was being robbed from me! Clearly, I am a control freak. The whole scene made me anxious about bed time, angry at Pitter for not just going to sleep “like a normal baby” (and what is that, exactly?), and irritated all around.

But then, I began playing a patience game with myself which has served me well. Call it kooky, call it blasphemous, call it What Works: When I was at my wits end, feeling nearly violent with the need for Pitter to just go to sleep after forty minutes of chattering, tossing and turning, etc. in our bed, I pretended that Pitter was Divine. I asked myself, What if this baby right here was an incarnation of Buddah, or Jesus himself? What if you were entrusted with caring for a prophet or a saint in their early childhood? Would you be annoyed that they weren’t doing exactly what you wanted them to do every minute, or would you feel blessed to be their caretaker? Maybe you would feel embraced by love, patience, and joy in the job of caring for your divine charge.

After a few nights of playing this game, I found that I no longer needed to do it consciously. My attitude naturally shifted to one of joy in spending an hour or so next to Pitter in the dark, waiting for him to drift to sleep, for his breath to become soft and regular, reveling in the pressure of his warm head pressed against my shoulder. Some nights, when he falls sleep quickly, I even feel a bit cheated. He’s tamed me.

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*Pitter falling asleep more quickly and sleeping for longer except for RIGHT now, as he battles the croup for the second time this year. He sounds like a cross between the seals on the pier in San Fran and the pigeons cooing and rustling in Central Park in NYC. It’s absolutely pathetic. And the final week of Operation Smokin’ Hot is quickly turning into Operation Survive this Week without getting full-blown sick myself just in time for the flight to the Cape on Saturday.

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Filed under breastfeeding, pitter, sleep