 Ask
Roxanne
Hey Roxanne --
I am having a challenging
time getting my sweet five month old baby girl to sleep at night. I look
forward to one hour a night to just do what I need to do for myself.
I'm a single mom -- I
practice "Attachment Parenting" -- she sleeps with me. People say
she should be sleeping through the night by now -- -uh NO.
According to The Baby Book-she is a "high-need" child --- which is why I'm
her mama. I can meet the challenge! I'm just
insanely tired.
Any suggestions?
Dear Anonymous:
I wanted to wait to answer
this question until you were so tired that you'd think that even an hour
of sleep felt like a whole night, thus being so grateful that you got what
is, essentially a long nap, that you would thank me for my expertise.
Here's the good news ...
You understand that a
five-month-old (especially one that nurses) just won't get 12 straight
hours of shut-eye, no matter what you do. The bad news is
that you know that you're not going to get a full night of sleep
(medically defined as five straight hours, by the way) for a while longer.
Insane tiredness is the
hallmark of any mother, especially one that is doing it alone. My only
suggestions are to enlist family, including baby's father, if at all
possible, to take some daytime duty so that you can get a little shut-eye
(even a 20-minute nap can be very rejuvenating). There's also the old
standby -- sleeping during the day when she sleeps, dishes and dust
bunnies be damned!
Also, she may be a
high-need child now, but that could change in a month, a week, a year,
whenever. Just take each day as it comes.
The other hardest part of
life as a mother is this: getting "one hour a night to just do what I need
to do for myself."
At that stage in Cameron's
life, I decided that Dateline NBC was the one hour nightly I wanted more
than anything. And I would get it while nursing him to sleep. I could also
read a book or magazine. But sometimes you just wanna do something,
anything, without someone hanging off a nipple. I can get that. So once
you get that nap during the day, use the first hour after baby's
bedtime to putter around and do your own thing.
Good luck!
Regards,
Roxanne
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