Sleeping Like a Baby? New Post on the New York Times Motherlode blog

Last updated on: April 26, 2012 at 7:40 pm by Amy Julia Becker

Sleeping Like a Baby? New Post on the New York Times Motherlode blog 2012-04-26T19:40:44-04:00 Amy Julia Becker

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I have a guest post today on Motherlode, the parenting blog of the New York Times. It begins:

Our middle child, William, had trouble sleeping as a newborn. And as an infant. And really up until he was eight months old. He fussed. He squirmed. He screamed. The slightest noise jolted him awake. Sunlight caused distress. During the day, he invariably woke up after a 40-minute nap. During the night, he required rocking and swaddling and shushing. He nursed every two to three hours.

It wasn’t because I didn’t try hard. I read half a dozen books on sleep and tried to adapt them to William’s needs. I modified my diet in case something I was eating made him uncomfortable. I set a consistent bedtime and morning wake up. I fed him on a schedule. I tried letting him cry it out, and he simply cried. For an hour. Night after night after night. And when I had tried it all and he still wouldn’t sleep, I berated myself for what I thought was my failure as a mother.

In the midst of my angst, I spoke with a friend who had three kids of her own. “I just need to figure it out,” I said, as if my son were a problem to be solved.

To read more, click here, and please feel free to leave a comment!

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