The "Infant Sleep" section at Barnes & Noble resembles some unmentioned circle of Hell. (Dante, clearly, did not have children.) The aisle is patrolled by slow-moving, irritable zombies who are not so much dangerous as troublesome. They tend to get in the way of quicker-moving folks (who are only using this aisle as a cut-through to the section on homemade probiotic smoothies) and seem dazed and discombobulated my any muttered "excuse me" thrown in their direction. These seemingly half-living entities wear the dark circles of enforced wakefulness under their eyes; they may not have brushed their hair today or yesterday for that matter. Most alarming of all, someone has entrusted babies to these people; the little ones can be seen riding around in strollers, peacefully asleep.
Generally, these zombies are called "parents" and they have come to this aisle for relief, as though it were the fountain of youth or the Oracle at Delphi. They seek answers. They seek truth. What oh what, besides daylight and a moving car, can induce their babies to sleep?
Is there any more harrowing trial of parenthood than sleep derivation? Any parent can understand how keeping a human being awake for too long is a kind of a torture. In fact, if babies were subject to the Geneva Convention, they would be in big trouble for crimes against humanity. But in their disguise of cuteness and innocence and dependence, we let these babies toy with our sleep. In fact, parents are at their infants' total mercy; they sleep when Baby says they can.
Knowledge of the kind to be gained from this particular aisle of the bookstore seems vital. An ocean's worth of ink has been spilled on the subject of getting Baby to sleep. While the basic facts remain the same (both babies and parents need to sleep, as it turns out), different researchers have different styles for accomplishing this goal. Pretty much any parent can find an author willing to endorse and explain a sleep strategy that aligns with the indivdual's parenting philosophy: cry it out, sleep train, co-sleep. . .the list goes on. Common and successful soothing mechanisms are discussed, chapters are spent on common sleep problems and bad habits. Many books even have what amounts to a troubleshooting sections, eerily mirroring the manual that parents are always told babies don't have. (Don't worry; any parenting book that attempts to be a manual for babies is always slightly off, as if the manufactuer sent you the instructions for the right product but the wrong model; the information is about the Alpha Gamma 2345 and you have the Beta Beta 1.)
Here is one problem no one covers: pooping and eating. Multiple authors with divergent sleeping philosophies (and let's be serious, I could do graudate-level research in this seemingly narow field, the writings are so prolific) have assured me that sleeping and eating are not related in the older infant, that being able to sleep through the night (defined as six hours, by the way, which is clearly a number decided upon by an insomniac) is a developmental accomplishment, not a matter of stomach size or appetite.
I say bullshit. More accurately, I say baby shit. A normal baby who eats a normal amount of food in most cases eliminates in a normal fashion: reasonable amounts at reasonable increments. A big baby, like my son, eats an unholy amount of food. He out-eats me at fourteen months of age. He has a much smaller body and, more importantly, a significantly shorter digestive tract. Can you, Dr. Ferber, Kim West, or Professor HappiestBabyontheBlock, fall asleep with a bowel full of poo? Because guess what? My adorable, sweet, perfect little baby poops like it's his job. In fact, if someone paid us for the volume of his output at the for-ounce price of gold, he'd be on his way to an Ivy League preschool. He blows out his diaper multiple times a day. He, memorably, pooped so exhaustively in his car seat that we all needed a change of clothes, a bath, an entire pack of wipes, and a hose. He can't nap because he has to poop. He wakes up at night full of farts. What do I do for a baby who eats so much that pooping keeps him awake?
Shockingly, no one sleep book spends a chapter or even a sentence on this topic. When bowel movements are mentioned at all, only problems are brought up. The underlying assumption is that if excrement is interfering with sleep, there must be a problem.
Well, my "problem" is that my almost-35-pound one-year-old can eat two pieces of pizza and fifteen ounces of baby food in a sitting. My "problem" is that he will eat one yogurt cup, scream for another, and then, as if those were merely appetizers, demolish two adult servings of macaroni and cheese. These "problems" are facts of my every day life. And they make for a lot of poop.
Baby Truism #4: Big babies have unique problems. . .and advice is scarce.
What do I do to help my son sleep? By all accounts, he should sleep through the night at his age. He is developmentally capable. If his discontent during these middle-of-the-night awakening is any indicator, he'd like to sleep without interruption. What solution is there short of a nightly pre-bed enema? (Please, lord of sleep, nooooo!)
This is the sentence in which I give my wise and tested answer. I don't have one. Usually I like to write about parenting experiences that I have considered, digested (ha ha), and resolved in some way. I don't have this one figured out. As I've said, I'm a rule-follower, and if any book offered help for my dilemma, I'd put it into action, step by step. (An awful TV show, by the way.) I'd test it out and report back. As it is, I'm at a loss. I hate to say that, because I also enjoy being succesful at what I do. I especially deplore magazine and newspaper articles that announce a problem specificaly for the purpose of announcing it, not offering any meaningful context or purpose. Spaghetti is yummy! Just thought you should know!
If I have any wisdom at this juncture, it's that no experience is as humbling for a goal-oriented, capable person as parenthood. There are seldom right answers. Most actions do not have a direct and measurable outcome. (Why else do parents worry that they are causing their children lasting damage and lining some predatory therapist's silken pockets?) Children do not offer reliable feedback, often preferring immediate and irresponsible parenting decisions to forward-looking, thoughtful ones.
So for the foreseeable future I will be changing poopy diapers 'round the clock and swabbing blow-outs out of car seats and my son's arm pits. (Oh, the glamor of parenthood.) I will continue taking the pediatrician's advice to "just keep feeding him" because his appetite and growth curve defy prediction and convention. Even though the sleep experts swear that he is too old for night feedings and that it is my fault he is a "trained night sleeper," I will continue nursing him at 3:30 in the morning when he needs it because I know when my son is hungry and he doesn't know that he is "supposed to" make it until six a.m. Normal babies eat breakfast at normal times. Big babies get hungry at times that defy expectation and ideal sleep patterns.
If I ever write a book on big babies and sleeping, it will be brief. In fact, I will likely have to credit our (very wise, very patient) pediatrican for the first two:
An early excerpt from His Poop Hit the Curtains: Sleep and the Big Baby:
1. Just keep feeding him.
2. Buy livestock.
3. Purchase stock in Gerber, Beech Nut, or your food supplier of choice.
4. Forget about sleeping.
In the end, baby sleep books offer valuable tips, but parents don't seek them out for those tidbits that can also be found on Yahoo! Answers. Those books call to us with the siren song of sleep, promising what we want most of all: rest. Here is a truism for all parents, regardless of the size of their babes: even when babies "sleep through the night," they really don't. Neither will you. For a long time.
Sorry.
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