Sleep Deprivation and Desperation Part 3

"You've heard about co-sleeping?" This from the NICU nurse the day we were sent home with Abby.

"Yes I have. But I'm not going to do it. It's not safe." The nurse smiled at me. Somehow I'd completely forgotten that 18 months previously I had Aidan sleeping in a make shift nest on our bed in an attempt to get him to sleep better.

"Well good. Do you know how many babies die every year from co-sleeping?"

A week after Abby's homecoming, we're in the used baby store buying whatever thing we think will help Abby sleep longer than one hour at a time. This includes a nest-like item to put in our bed. I won't roll over on her because it has sides. At least that is what I tell myself as Mark and I throw it, a travel swing, and some sleep sacks on the counter. My hands are quaking from the extra shot mocha I downed in an attempt to gain some energy and right now I'm willing to do ANYTHING to get her to sleep at night. (Even risk disapproval from nurses and my own inner-mother that shrieks 'you'll roll over and crush her'. At this point that inner-mother is being beaten by the more realistic mother who shouts 'Damn it just ONE more friggin hour! She's more likely to expire from us falling down the stairs while holding her in a sleep deprived haze than rolling on her!) Before I can ponder why I'm saying "us" in reference to myself, we're handing over a debit card.

Of course right now, as we fork over money for baby items, she's sleeping peacefully in her car seat. It isn't fair that she is asleep NOW while I'm dragging through the day and I squelch the urge to wake her up. I hypothesize that the reason she is asleep at the moment is the vibrating of the car ride. Motion. It works on all of them. But so does being close to Mom, hearing Mom breathe. At least that is what the books say and currently I am forgetting that "the books" don't tell the truth.

At least they don't tell you the whole truth. The truth is that all babies are different and the "expert ideas" only work some of the time. The books are full of maybes. The ideas may work. I am forgetting that these first few months with a newborn are a series of trials and errors as you learn about the new being in your life.

As I vibrate with caffeine at the check-out, I should be remembering that when it comes to my children anything that is considered "not safe" is a magic charm. Whether it's sleeping in a swing, being swaddled, or dozing on their belly, if the American Academy of Pediatrics is against it, my kids are all for it.

By December 22, 8 days after Abby came home nothing is working and I find myself slipping into the abyss. She is now on formula because I couldn't keep the breast milk coming. I have guilt. The nest didn't work, swaddling quit working, and the swing remains empty. So much for my ideas and my mothering instinct. Only one idea, using an electric cradle that we had for Aidan, and propping her upright in it with blankets, has worked. She slept for two hours.

But now Mark sleeps upstairs in our bed while I have moved into the living room with a twin bed. We've changed formula twice in a matter of days in a desperate attempt to find anything to help the sleep and the grunting. I'm spending a majority of the time not enjoying my daughter. I'm wishing I could take her back to the NICU and pronounce "I'm not taking her back home until you fix her!" It's only been EIGHT days! I'm a failure. I feel ready to check myself in for post-partum depression, when I remember.

The Amby bed. I tried to get Mark to purchase the contraption with Aidan because we thought he had reflux. (Turned out to be colic.) It costs $251 and Mark was damned if he was going to spend that kind of money on what looked like a glorified laundry bag on a hook. Yet this time is different. Maybe it's because we are overprotective since she was preemie. Maybe it's because her nights are worse than Aidan's were. He only cried hours before falling asleep for the night, as opposed to not sleeping. Maybe it is that we already spent 20 days with disturbed sleep before she came home, because I was getting up to pump. (Not to mention I flopped like a beached whale at the end of the pregnancy and often ruined our sleep.)

At 3am in the morning I am online building my case. Dr. Sears recommends it. Articles are posted on the web saying how hospitals use this bed for their preemies. All the parent letters say how wonderful it truly is. I look at the pictures on the website sent in by parents of their little darlings snuggled in for a long night's sleep. I present the pictures and articles to Mark. It moves when she moves. It snuggles her in. It will work. It has to work. We scrounge the credit.

I hit the "submit order" button and begin to count the days for the arrival of the miracle bed.