Do It Yourself

When Anika was two days old, she was diagnosed with jaundice.  Treatment involved photo therapy in the bili-bed, also known as torture device for babies.  All she wanted was to be snuggled.  And all I wanted to do was snuggle her.  But since she had to be under the lights whenever she wasn't nursing or being changed, I couldn't.  Each time I put her back in the bili-bed, I sat next to her crib, held her hand, stroked her head, sang to her, and shushed her until she fell asleep. One positive thing, aside from eliminating the bilirubin from her body, that came out of having to be in the bili-bed was Anika learning to fall asleep in her crib, without being rocked.  That didn't last long.

I discovered how amazingly wonderful it feels to nurse and rock a baby, my baby, to sleep.  I discovered how much I loved holding her little body close to mine, inhaling her sweet smell, kissing her head, whispering to her how much I love her, how sweet and wonderful she is, singing her song to her.  Only another mother knows what that feels like - it's the best drug, better than sex, more intoxicating than liquor, a higher high than running.

We developed a bedtime routine relatively early in Anika's life.  Some nights are bath nights but all nights involve her bedtime massage, nursing, swaddling, and rocking set to "Baby Einstein Lullaby Classics".  (Track 6 is "Jesu - Joy of Man's Desiring", which was the processional at our wedding; I now think of it as "our song".)  Before I returned to work, I started lying her down in her crib, not yet sleeping, and sit by her side until she drifted off, much like the days of the bili-bed.  She again learned to put herself to sleep and not rely on me to put her to sleep.  Once I returned to work (and half-marathon training), however, did things really change.

Being away from her for almost 10 hours a day broke my heart.  There were several days when I got home just in time to put her to bed.  There were a few days when I missed putting her to bed altogether.  Bedtime became my time.  Some nights she would fall asleep at the breast and I would carefully transport her to her crib, swaddle her, gather her back up, and snuggle her for 10, 20, sometimes 30 more minutes.  Other nights, she fought falling asleep and I rocked, talked, and sang to her until she nodded off.

I created a monster who insisted on being nursed, swaddled, and rocked to sleep only to wake up in the wee hours of the night insisting on being nursed, swaddled, and rocked back to sleep.  On the nights that didn't work, she was brought back our bed to be snuggled back to sleep.  When Anika was about 7 and a half months old, I stopped nursing her in the middle of the night.  She stopped being swaddled two weeks ago.  And when she fell out of the bed last Monday morning while I was still sleeping after Jared had left for work, I decided the monster needed to be slain.

I type this as she lies, sleeping, in her crib, after putting herself to sleep without any tears or screaming.  One week and one day ago, I put her down while she was still awake.  She was pissed as hell.  She screamed and cried for about 40 minutes before giving up and falling asleep.  The next night she cried for 10 minutes.  The next, she only cried for about a minute.  The next 5 nights, she cried when I put her down and stopped as soon as I closed the door.

This morning, I awoke to the sounds of crickets through the monitor.  She woke up and instead of being mad that she was awake and alone, she turned on her Rainforest soother and entertained herself until Jared went in to get her.

I miss our special snuggle time.  The tradeoff?  A full night's sleep.  We'll both survive.