The Book of Ruth Chapter 7: Sleep No More

Fuck me? Fuck YOU?! I wanted to scream as Ruth and I locked eyes at 3:37am. This perfect preemie. Ms. I slept 10 hours and 15 minutes at 2 months adjusted, 4 months from birth. I can’t stop trying to do the math. How old is this kid? Where is she developmentally? What the fuck is going on? It’s like the baby gods knew I sucked at math and decided to send forth a baby that is impossible to figure out her actual age and developmental stage. Fuck me? Fuck YOU!

So it's going suuuuuper well if you can’t tell by my tone. People have been asking how it’s going. Sleep is…a nightmare except she isn’t asleep so it’s an awakemare. A wakemare? WHATEVER! It’s chaos, guys. I am not A type. I feel like mom-ing is very A type- friendly work. What about us get-there-in-our-own-time people? I keep track of Ruth’s fucking wake windows in this fucking little app with it’s fucking little berry logo and now I feel like even fruit is mocking me. Which is super disappointing because I love fruit. Everyone has turned on me. Even sweet delicious berries.

I feel like my first posts were real chipper. Hormones are wild! I want to go back to those vibes please. The high on my bullshit days. Can I just live in that joy because this phase is less fun.

I want to put a little disclaimer here, I’m not looking for sleep advice unless you’ve discovered the recipe for baby valium. We can chat, but I feel like baby sleep is as divisive as conservative vs. liberal. People have feelings!

These. Babies. They make you see things all sunny, and sweet, and joyful and then WHAM your baby is doing a

tik tok dance in her crib at 3:47am because bitch doesn’t know what night and day is. Except I do, because this change in behaviour is as clear as night in day. As in she sleeps neither night nor day.

I’m being dramatic for affect. For shits and gigs. Are you not entertained?! Ruth still gets her sleep. She’s FINE. She’s doing normal baby shit. She’s sleeping in smaller chunks than before but she’s fine. Me? Ms. Former Insomniac, is having a hard time with her change in sleep habits. Because I have a tenuous fucking relationship with catching zzs. And I had it pretty figured out by the time sweet Baby Ruth came along. And then she faked us out by sleeping so well for five months (remember she was only developmentally 3 months old! Are you enjoying preemie math?), that I am shook, my friends. I am so shook that I am using Gen z lingo.

Thing is, Ruth is living her best life. She enjoys an extended comfort nursing session followed by several wake ups at inconsistent intervals before she turns in for a stretch of 4 or five hours then needs a little snack and then is out for another l’il stretcherino of a few hours. Notice how I've adopted using both arabic numerals and written numbers? That’s something Munsch does in his books that I read Ruth while begging her to go the fuck to sleep. My brain is seeping out the side of my head, I swear to Murmel.

I hate sleep specialists. All of them. From the holistic hippy ones to the hey-mama-you-can-do-it-don’t-let-your-baby-nurse-to-sleep-or-they-will-become-a-deviant-you-horrible-excuse-for-a-mother ones.These are some words I’ve learned that I hate in no particular order: sleepy-but-awake (urban myth), wake window (more like shove you out the wake window), sleep cycle (you can cycle that term the hell away from me), regression (haven’t we, as a society been regressing ahem truckers), sleep training (mmm okay sounds good, like waterboarding), Romanian orphanages (don’t look it up. do yourself a favor, just don’t). Basically moms are made to feel like they’re just doing everything wrong at all times unless they crack the whip and train that baby into submission or hippy-dip them into a comfy cosleep sitch. There are no in betweens. I respect everyone who has found a way that works for them. Cosleepers unite! Sleep trained, I tip my motherfucking hat to you! I, don't know what I'm going to do.

But I feel like I’m caught in the in-between. And I think this has been my first big existential struggle as a mother: is there a middle ground? Can I let myself fail? Can I let Ruth fail? Can I let us figure out how to sleep alone, together? Despite being told by everyone there is only one way? Am I really putting her at a great risk by still letting her swaddle despite her refusal to roll? She is as lazy as I am, are we surprised by her late blooming? No. This fucking swaddle. This is a transition I have been trying to phase out for weeks despite her sleeping so much better with it and she isn’t rolling. I did an instagram poll. Many people swaddled past the recommended age. But I feel very guilty and yet I’m putting it off. Can you feel the mom-guilt building?

Sleep. The biggest relationship in my life. Bigger than Thomas, bigger than Ruth, bigger than Brisket. Because my anxiety is triggered by lack of sleep. And if I’m anxious or depressed I don’t get to show up how I want to for them. I don’t get to be the mom or partner or me I want to be. Because lack of sleep scrambles my brain. And I’m sitting here wondering if my neurosis about sleep is seeping into Ruth’s little mind as I struggle to get her the sleep she needs so she can grow. I know I am not alone in this worry or having the joy stolen from this experience by worries about sleep and getting enough of it. Just don’t ask me if she’s sleeping through the night. She did for a long time, but now she’s on her own damn schedule. Such is life.

Basically, I just wanted to come here and say, nobody has all the answers. And despite our unbridled joy at watching this stone cold cutie grow and develop, there’s a lot of questioning and fear along the way. Like everything in life, there can’t be only one way that works. I’m staring down three options, all of which I don’t like. Cosleep, sleep train, get up every two hours to comfort nurse her back to sleep (or every 1 hour, 45 mins, 30, mins, jk she’s never sleeping because the more you comfort them the more comfort they want and you’re a horrible mother btw your child is ruined!).

But what I do know is obsessing and researching is stealing my joy. I don’t want to look back and say, wow I really missed the big picture. I wasn’t there for her because I was obsessing over the night ahead. I missed the best part.

There are only a few things that give me solace. 1) Thomas reminding me that no one knows our baby like we do. We need to trust ourselves and her. 2) She’s a good baby even if she’s bad with sleep. 3) We’ll all sleep better if I chill the fuck out.

I guess sleep is a distraction at this point. I can fixate on it and try to wrangle it for her because I can’t wrangle her. She is changing and growing and Ruth-ing. If I look too closely at that, my heart might burst. Disintegrate into a million pieces. I can help her figure out sleep but I can’t make time stand still. Because despite the night ahead, and all of them behind us, and all of them to come it’s incredibly overwhelming being in charge of this tiny person who’s getting closer and closer to being able to call out for me, ‘mum’, at all hours of the night.