Thank Goodness for Sleeping Babies

With Logan I had it pretty lucky. He was and still is a fantastic sleeper.
And because of that I was in a false sense of security when it came to having another baby. I thought that I bred good sleeping babies. That by some genetic miracle, it was all me.

This lasted until Ryder was born and was anything but the cruisy baby I had experienced with his older brother. I was in Struggle Town and felt like a new mother. And I needed help.

You see, Ryder was a reflux baby. He had colic, wind, and was awake every 20-minutes for the first couple of weeks of his little life. I tried to breastfeed, I wasn't able to with Logan and really wanted to push myself harder... yet no matter what I did there was no supply. I was expressing, breastfeeding, topping up with formula, whilst dealing with next to no sleep. If it wasn't for the amazing support from my husband, and those close to me I don't think I would have coped. And the decision was made to stop stressing over something I obviously had no control over, and the fight to breastfeed was lost.

I cried. On and off for days.

I was a failure and was depriving my son of everything a mother should give.
That's what I kept telling myself, and it was ripping me up inside. To a certain extent it still does, but I can now reflect and see that there is no way I would have been able to satisfy him - he's just one of 'those' hungry, hungry babies.

It took a long time for Ryder to get into a good sleep routine. And having issues with reflux meant he was super clingy and we fell into a routine of putting him to sleep in our arms. I loved it, I loved the bonding it enabled us as parents, but at the same time it became more and more difficult to settle him as he became more aware of his surroundings. And he fought. And on one occasion Mummy got a black eye from said fighting.

On a bad night he'd wake hourly. On a normal night it was every 2-3 hours.

In Ryder's first 6-months, I can count on one hand how many times he slept through. He'd fall asleep at about 9pm (after fighting to the death with us for goodness knows how long) and would awake at about 3am, and then again at 6am. That to us was a Lotto win. And we'd awake in the middle of the night too scared to go and check up on him incase it woke him up, yet too scared not to go, in fear something had gone wrong.

You can only imagine the fear when he recently started sleeping 11-hours. Straight. And the elation that came when it wasn't a one-off. Thank goodness for sleeping babies! Mummy and Daddy are feeling alive.

And on a Sunday morning where we've actually had a sleep in, we feel human. Both of us. All of us.