First question for a new mama, after the cursory "How are you?" - "How's the baby sleeping?" And, in response, I have to lie. I don't want to be a traitor to my son, and make the asker think that my boy is (gasp!) not a good sleeper. I feel like I have to protect him from judgement - the same way you'd protect a classmate in the third grade from the wrath of the subsitute teacher by pretending not to know who drew a big-nosed likeness of her on the side of the bathroom stall.
Why is everyone so interested in his sleep habits? No one asks about his smiles - which come very frequently and often accompany full-body wriggles of delight. One coworker asked if he laughed yet, which was a nice change in the line of baby-related questioning, even though I had to say "Ummm, not really." No one wonders about Axel's eating habits, love of track lighting (or his best friend, who he often gazes at adoringly, table lamp), or interest in grabbing the cat's fur. No one asks about how much he drools - enough to drench his shirt, sheets, the side of his face, and still have more to leave wet mouth marks on my shoulder. Maybe that's not something I should brag about.
Really, though, how much do a three month old's sleep habits reflect on his strength of character? Does waking up at 1 or 2 am every night mean that he's going to be holding up banks by the time he's thirteen? I didn't think so. So I've got to curtail this unnecessary urge to defend my boy's honor by stretching the truth a bit about his sleep habits.
Here's the truth: he does not sleep through the night. A few times, he's slept six hours in a row - and, on one blessed evening when the stars shone like diamonds and the moon was bright, for seven hours. But then he goes back to waking up every three to five hours. Even the time he slept seven hours (mostly) in a row, he woke up and made a few grunts and yells and needed some tummy rubbing to settle back down. I repeat, he does not sleep through the night.
Sometimes, I like his night wakings. He smiles when he sees me standing over him, and I scoop him up and try not to crush him in a hug. He's warm and cuddles against me in the rocking chair as he eats. There's a bonus to all this night nursing, too: I get to keep up on my magazine reading - when else would I be reading Vogue or the New Yorker? There are times, of course, when I wish that my husband had functioning nipples and could take his share of these sleep interruptions. He doesn't even move anymore in response to Axel's night noises or when I roll out of bed or even when I turn on the lights. Though I've always been a deep sleeper, and can fall asleep within five minutes of getting into the passenger seat of a warm car, it's already clear that I'll be the one up in response to nightmares and late night fevers.
The length of time Axel sleeps does not seem to be affected by the amount of rocking he gets before bed, number of bedtime stories read, length of time nursing, wrap of the swaddle blanket, presence or absence of a pacifier, or white noise from the humidifier - though all of these things seem to help him get to sleep, at least some of the time. Eventually, he will sleep through the night. He's got to, right? In the meantime, I'm going to stop lying and, when asked about his sleep habits, answer truthfully that he sleeps like a baby - not the peaceful, sound sleep of the cliche but in sometimes fiftul bursts.
