For those of you blessed with children, it’s often easy to forget that you were a wife before you were a mother.
And I think the wife role is actually the more important one, because once you’re a mom, other people are now depending on you!
It’s Wednesday, the day we always talk marriage, and today let’s deal with this tension between being a wife and being a mom.
First, I guest posted over at Life as Mom this week, sharing 5 Ways to Transition at Night from “Mom” to “Wife”.
After writing that, I came across my friend Julie’s piece from Intimacy in Marriage, where she gives moms a bit of a pep talk.
If you don’t nurture sex now, then when?
Every season of parenting has its time constraints and energy depletion. Every. Season.
I kid you not.
1. Put the kids in their own room.
I know, I know.
Some of you are big on the whole family bed concept. Sadly, what I think happens in too many houses isn’t family bed at all, but rather “mom and kid” bed, while dad sleeps elsewhere.
Regardless of whether you’re all sharing a bed or if you’ve told yourself “just while they are little,” I’m going to challenge you to reclaim some marital ground.
Personally, I think your bed should be the one place in the house that is just about the two of you. Much easier to teach those kids that they have their own space in their room, rather than fight the battle of getting them out of your bed after they’ve been sleeping in it for 6 years.
But that’s not the point I want to make.
I want to talk about the wider issue of just SLEEP–sleep when you have little ones and you’re exhausted.
Let me tell you about little Katie.
When she was born, I nursed her whenever she wanted. In fact, she nursed for the first 18 hours of her life. She wouldn’t stop sucking (though she’d pause for a minute or two between sucks).
When we were home she’d still want to nurse a ton. She was often fussy. She wanted me all the time. Finally I found that I couldn’t get anything done, and I couldn’t ever interact with Rebecca, our oldest one, because Katie was literally on the breast about 10 hours a day.
We started spacing out her feedings–I’d give her fifteen minutes on each breast, and then I’d make her wait two hours, and then two and a half hours, and then three hours, until she was happily going three hours or more. And we found that she was far less fussy. She’d pay attention to what Rebecca was doing. She laughed more!
But she still didn’t sleep. During those nursing-all-the-time days I was simply exhausted. But Katie always seemed to sleep in the swing, so we’d put her in the swing just to give ourselves a break.
Katie in that dreaded swing!
Soon she wouldn’t sleep unless she was in the swing. And as soon as the swing stopped swinging, she’d cry and we’d have to wind it up again. One of us had to sleep beside the swing and wind it up every time it ran out of steam, or she’d wail.
After a few weeks of this we realized we were being ridiculous. We were both so sleep deprived we weren’t functioning. But we had trained Katie to need the swing to sleep. We had to help her learn to self-soothe–to go sleep by herself.
When she was about five months old we did this. We’d put her in the crib while she was still awake for her naps and for bedtime. Every few minutes we’d go in and reassure her that we loved her, but we wouldn’t pick her up. She cried a ton the first day and a half–and then she stopped crying. She learned how to go to sleep by herself. And she became a whole new baby! She was happy. She was alert. She wasn’t always sleep deprived.
When babies and toddlers need someone else to put them to sleep, they get very fussy. It’s actually quite intimidating, because when they wake up, they don’t know what to do without that other stimulation. But when they learn to sleep on their own, they get much happier.
The Mistakes We Made with Rebecca and Her Bottle
Becca slept better than Katie, but we did go through a few rough days when we had to train her to sleep without needing me to nurse her. She was waking up in the middle of the night NOT HUNGRY, but simply needing to be put back to sleep. I always nursed her to sleep, so when she woke up, she needed me.
When she was six months old we helped her learn to sleep without nursing, and lo and behold, she started sleeping through the night! It was easy peasy.
Until, that is, she hit about a year and we found out about my son’s heart defect (I was pregnant, and we learned how serious it was). We got lazy, and I started letting Becca go to sleep with a bottle of water.
She stopped sleeping through the night, because when she woke up, she’d cry for her bottle. So we had to take the bottle of water away until she went to sleep on her own again.
Rebecca at the hospital with her baby brother. By that time she was sleeping again, which was good, because we really needed sleep!
With both girls, when they were sleeping on their own their mood was much improved, they slept longer, and they napped better. And that meant that I could sleep!
A Story of a Friend and Holding Her Baby
I have another friend who held her baby (then about 13 or 14 months old) to sleep. Whenever the baby wanted to nap, she had to hold her. Through the whole nap. Which meant that for two hours in the afternoon, while the baby was sleeping, she couldn’t move.
Then, to put the baby to sleep at night, either she or her husband had to hold the baby for about two hours until she was in a deep sleep. Then they could transfer her into the crib. But if she woke up, she’d cry, and she’d need them to hold her again.
The baby had learned that sleep=Mommy or Daddy holding me.
That wasn’t sustainable. Everyone was exhausted, and the baby was incredibly fussy.
They scheduled a week when Mom had vacation to train the baby to sleep on her own. Sure, she cried a lot, but she learned to sleep! And suddenly the fussiness went away, too. She was a much nicer baby to be with.
A lot of parenting literature tells you that you need to sleep with your baby, feed them whenever they want, and nurse them whenever they want at night.
Again, if that is working for you, that’s fine.
But it doesn‘t work for many parents, and I think that’s why parents get so exhausted. What your child really needs to attach with you is for you to interact with your child when your child is awake. Talk to the baby. Play with the baby. Laugh with the baby. Pay attention to the baby! All of that is so much harder to do if you’re chronically exhausted.
If something isn’t working for you, and if you’re absolutely exhausted, it’s okay to do something about it. It’s okay to teach your baby or toddler to not need you to fall asleep.
I read the most riveting story by a woman who wrote about just this–how she ditched attachment parenting, because they got to the point that the baby would only sleep while lying on top of her with the breast in her mouth. Soon no one was getting any sleep. She had to give up her ideas of what being a good parent was, and realize that it wasn’t selfish to need sleep. When she did that, the whole mood of the house changed.
I’ve written a lot about exhaustion this week, on this blog and on Jessica’s. And I really think that the key to keeping marriages fresh is simply getting enough sleep. So if what you’re doing with your baby or toddler isn’t working, it’s okay to help them learn to sleep on their own (once they’re past the newborn stage). Talk to your doctor–all family docs and pediatricians can help you with this! (Trust me, my husband is a pediatrician). And get some sleep. You need it, and so does everybody else.
Let me know in the comments: What mistakes did you make getting your babies/toddlers to sleep? Or what challenges do you have now? Let’s talk about it!
Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 29 years and happily married for 24! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 7 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.
I totally agree! If it’s not working change it!
I think the real point of attachment parenting is to get to know your baby and have a healthy bond. Unfortunately the tools of attachment parenting (like nursing on demand, baby wearing, co-sleeping) have turned into rules that may enslave people to a method. I think it is as much off as the other side of the spectrum where baby’s are forced to follow a magic schedule…
I think as a culture the motherly instinct has to be rediscovered. And we need to shut out some distractions too. We need to learn to read our kids. Even the tiniest baby is communicating often very clearly. But if every time the say a peep we put them to nurse we may have missed some thing. I am by nature against following a method. I always figure out my own way using things from here and there. I knew to distinct my kids different cries. But with my third it was really amazing how clear she communicated. I knew when she woke up to nurse or when she just needed to turn around, or when she was tired. Very early on I would put her in her bed for a nap when I saw a tired cue and she put herself to sleep, no fuss, no need to cry it out. I am not sure if it’s that her cues where clearer or if I got better at paying attention… But it was quite fascinating to experience. Even though she does still wake at night, but she is an easy to deal with kid. Now we expect baby no 4… And I totally need some sleep. First trimester tiredness. Night waking toddler and homeschooling. I think I never been so tired.
So agree, Lydia! You said it so well–if it’s not working, change it, and let’s not became a slave to a method. Exactly!
I agree about reading, too. We started reading to our babies when they were 6 months old with board books. By age 4 they were loving chapter books. Reading was a major part of our day. But we found reading at night, even when they were babies, got them settled for the evening and was part of the “it’s time to quieten down now and think about sleeping” cues.
I think when kids are older, by the way, we do the same thing–when they’re bored we tend to feed them. It’s just easier. But then kids start to think, “when I’m bored, I should eat”, which sets them up for a horrible relationship with food as they get older. But feeding often distracts a child long enough so we can get some stuff done. Sometimes we do things that seem easier in the short run (like I did when I started letting Becca sleep with a bottle of water), and it ends up really backfiring in the long run.
We have a toddler and a 5 month old. The toddler still toddles in to our room in the middle of the night, and the 5 month old is still waking up once or twice a night. We are tired. I’m thankful we have our toddler going to bed by himself at least, so we have bed time to be together as a couple in bed. We feed on demand but I don’t nurse, so my husband and I take turns with who is “on” at night, which is nice so we both get some nights of sleep. I’m looking forward to sleeping through the night happening consistently though. I’m tired.
I bet you are! That is exhausting!
The 5 month old will be able to sleep through the night soon. Sometimes when they go through a growth spurt they wake up hungry again, but I found with my babies when they were older than 6 months, when they woke up in the middle of the night to nurse, it wasn’t food they wanted. It was just the sucking that got them to sleep again. They wouldn’t even suck that hard, so you could kind of tell the difference. So if your baby isn’t actually drinking that much, then that may be a cue that it isn’t hunger as much as it is just wanting to get back to sleep! The best way around that is to make sure that at nap times during the day the baby is falling asleep on her own or his own. If the baby can fall asleep alone, without eating, during the day, then the baby will naturally do it in the middle of the night, too! You will get through this! And you will get some sleep again. I promise!
I heartily agree with this. Babies actually do better when they learn to sleep on their own and let mom and dad get some sleep too. Sure, they’re going to cry some when they’re being transitioned because they don’t understand why things are different. You don’t let them cry for hours alone or anything like that. You check on them, soothe them, and make sure their needs are met. But giving them the skill of falling asleep on their own is important, not only to the parents’ sanity, but for the child’s well-being too. It’s important for baby’s needs to be met, but it’s also important that mom and dad have their needs met too, and that includes sleep and time to engage in marital intimacy.
Exactly! I think whenever I talk about training kids to sleep, people think that I mean “leave them wailing and ignore them completely”, and that’s not what I mean at all. Yes, you soothe them. Yes, you reassure them every few minutes. But they have to learn to sleep, for everyone’s sake!
When I had my second baby, every single nurse I interacted with in the hospital said “Just feed him on demand.” (my first baby slipped straight into a 2 1/2 – 3 hour nursing cycle pretty much right away – he’s a routine kid) Well I tried that. And it was terrible. He wanted to nurse all day and all night long. I spent literally half my day on the couch nursing, and I was so sleep deprived I started to act kind of psycho. And my milk supply started to dwindle. Which was weird, because isn’t it supposed to go up when you’re nursing on demand??? I started gradually pushing him into a schedule. It took a little time and he didn’t like it at first, until he figured out how good a full meal of nursing felt instead of just snacking all day, and my milk supply went back up (a little too much up – I dealt with a lot of engorgement and two bouts of mastitis!). I got criticized here and there for feeding on a schedule instead of on demand. But I really do not care. Everyone in our family was happier that way, my babies were both happy and healthy and grew like weeds.
I tell ya that to tell ya this: You have to take an objective look at the whole picture. You matter. Your health matters, your sanity matters, your rest matters.
Amen, Melissa!
And I just want to reiterate what you said about “snacking”–that’s what Katie was doing, too. When they don’t actually eat a big meal, then OF COURSE they’re constantly hungry. What they’re doing is “grazing” all day, and they never get a whole bunch all at once. And your milk WILL dry up because it never produces that much, since they only eat a little bit at a time.
Sometimes we just really have to do what works for everyone, even if it goes against how we thought we were going to mother!
This has definitely been the story of my life these last nine months. I tried literally every single gentler sleep method there was, and my baby would only sleep for a maximum of two hours at a time. After talking to the pediatrician, we finally just put him down with a clean diaper and a small stuffed animal and let him put himself back to sleep during those nighttime wakings. He’s actually going back to sleep and staying there much longer than we expected, considering we’ve been doing this less than a week! Getting him to nap in his crib instead of my lap is the next step– a total fail today, since he woke up as soon as I put him down, but at least I tried.
Oh, Becky, I’m glad you’re getting some sleep now! I understand about the nap thing. You’ll get through it. It’ll be a tough couple of days, but you’ll all be happier afterwards!
Thank you! As a mom to 4 under 4 sleep is vital! I know some of my friends think I’m crazy (or that it’s mean) to put our kids to bed earlier then theirs or that our kids take a nap at 1 everyday, or they sleep by themselves in their crib, but I do not care. I’d rather them *think* I’m crazy than to actually be crazy from lack of sleep! 😀 trust me. Every time we skip our schedule they are so grumpy!
I know! For me it really was self-preservation. I couldn’t sleep with Katie on top of me. Not at all. She could, but not me. But what good did it do anyone if I became a walking zombie? I needed sleep, too!
I am definitely chronically exhausted 🙁 My son is 8 and has autism and SPD. He won’t go to sleep if I’m not in his room with him. My 6 year old daughter has some sensory issues and has picked up his habits. They both wake up in the middle of the night and come to my bed. I don’t remember the last time I slept through the night. I have tried everything to change this situation but had no success. I’m always tired. The first thing people ask when they see me is if I’m ok. I know that’s because I look tired with very dark under eyes circles. My husband has tried to help me but he needs his sleep as he woks two jobs so I can stay home with the kids. He told me to sleep while the kids are in school, but I can’t fall asleep even though I definitely should. I don’t know what else to do. The pediatrician is no help because he only gives me ideas I’ve already tried and didn’t work. Parenting children on the spectrum is a whole different ballpark. It definitely affects intimacy with my husband. He’s always complaining we don’t have enough sex, and that just makes me feel very anxious and even more tired.
Wow! You certainly do have your hands full. That’s so tough.
My husband says that there are pediatricians who specialize in sleep, and know a lot about autism and sleep (because it’s such a common problem). Can you ask your pediatrician for a referral to a sleep clinic? Also, some autism support groups may have some thoughts for you.
Other than that–I’d say get some respite care if you can and try to take a night or two a month away from home. Go stay with a friend or a sister or something and have your husband deal with the kids! But that’s so tough, and I’m really sorry.
I’m going to ask for a sleep study for my son for sure. My daughter, however, still needs to be evaluated to get therapy for her many sensory issues. Sometimes I think she’s also on the spectrum and is very high functioning like my son. She does so well in school though and has many meltdowns only when she comes home, when only I am around to handle it. Only very close family members see what I see, everyone else thinks I’m overeating. Sometimes I think I’m going crazy! Thanks for the tips.
I didn’t make these mistakes around sleeping because I knew I and the baby needed to sleep since I was going back to work in 3 months. I knew that I couldn’t function without sleep, so I was never torn about this. Now the first time a child cried without me picking them up I must say it felt like an eternity – but I guarantee you it wasn’t even 5 mins. Folks were always amazed that all my children slept through the night.
It’s true, when you’re exhausted so many things are off.
Must be nice. We tried that with our daughter but she screamed and screamed and escalated no matter how we reassured or many times we reassured her. My nerves couldn’t take it with post partum depression if we were to keep me and the baby alive. Yes it was THAT bad. And yes, unfortunately she is still sleeping with me at 16 months old. But my husbAnd was sleeping separately before I even got pregnant. And he has no drive for sex. So, I guess we’re not too bad off.
I agree on the whole but like all marriage advice, it isn’t a one-size-fits-all, and I want to add a disclaimer that women severely struggling with PPD need to do whatever it takes to get the sleep they need, even if it isn’t ideal. I vowed I would never co-sleep and I would DEFINITELY never sleep in a separate bedroom from my husband, but my second daughter was a very tough kid. To this day don’t know what was PPD and what was prolonged sleep deprivation, but in the end, I coslept downstairs with her for a few weeks until I was more stable. In that pit of despair, I was not capable of sleep training. (Granted, I was suicidal at that point, so I wasn’t capable of much.) But the turning point came for us when we started that new sleep arrangement and I finally got more sleep. No, it wasn’t ideal and it wasn’t a long term solution, but was the right choice at the time. And we later found out my daughter had some extremely rare digestive disorder, so I am extremely glad that I didn’t try to sleep train her when she was in so much pain. Once we identified the trigger foods and cut them out, she was like a new kid.
With baby number three, on the other hand, I knew how important sleep was. I was pretty against any kind of crying it out because my oldest would throw up EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Going in every few minutes to reassure was too long. She’d be covered in puke. Frankly, I don’t know how to sleep train a kid like that… But anyway, I was a lot stricter with my third. She is still a terrible napper and a miserable kid during the day, unfortunately, but she sleeps great at night. So I don’t want to say that sleep training will instantly solve all your problems. It won’t. Some kids are tougher to figure out than others. And sometimes time is your friend. Babies don’t stay babies for long.
Bottom line, if what you are doing is working for you (and make ABSOLUTELY sure it is, cuz it isn’t if hubby hates it), then go for it. But if things aren’t working, you need to try something new or nothing will change.
And if yoire still exhausted all the time, try jumping in the shower with your hubby first thing in the morning before you’re too tired to stand. The physical touch (and the intimacy that comes with being naked together) before you’re touched out is wonderful and it can still put a smile on his face to start the day! ????.
Thank you Kay. I certainly did not WANT to be sleeping with my baby girl, but survival first, right? If anyone can sleep train their kids I am ALL FOR IT! It is definitely the best thing, if you can.
This is a blog on infant sleep training that I’ve found incredibly informative http://www.weebeedreaming.com/
I am a mom of eight, and every one of our babies slept with us, and we loved it. There is nothing wrong with making sure baby is secure and NOT having sex in a bed! I think the bottom line is that we as mom’s…….first timers or veterans, realize how important it is to listen to our mommy hearts and do what we feel is right for us. It’s so easy to look at someone else’s formula and try to copy that. But, God created every one of our babies’ differently and every family is different. So someone else’s formula for doing “it” will not necessarily work for us. I figured that out the hard way. We just need to be strong in our convictions and stick with what God is speaking to us about (co-sleeping, attachment, homeschooling, not immunizing, going organic, etc) and not be concerned with what others say. We are very happily married…..in every way! Which is not to say we haven’t had tough seasons, but those tough times made us stronger as a couple as we worked through them. They also continually help us realize how dependent we are on God! DO WHAT IS RIGHT FOR YOU & YOUR FAMILY!
Sleep training is HARD no matter when you do it. We co-slept the first few months with each (it was the best way for us all to get rest) then sleep trained. I don’t think our intimacy suffered, but we also made it a priority despite being in baby mode.
I wish I had had this information 40 years ago…. things could have been a lot different and better!
What I wish I had known with my first is that babies act like they want to nurse for many reasons, they root around like they want food not only because they’re hungry, but because they’re tired, just want to suck to soothe themselves, and so on. Babies who want to eat all the time are often NOT hungry. They are tired and are trying to get themselves to sleep. My first is still not a good sleeper but my second and third are much better, mostly because I figured it out and did not give into their “want to nurse all day” tendencies and instead taught them to self-soothe and fall asleep on their own.
Yes! So true.
No, I’m a child of God first!