About sleep

I've been reading a lot about sleep and "self soothing" given the madness that is our nightlife.  I have natural leaned towards attachment/evolutionary parenting f as a parenting style,  feeling good about the way it fits our family.   I decided to breastfeed,  which led to co-sleeping and then bedsharing,  and my biggest problem has been how other people react when they find out,  not the act itself.  I babywear when possible and try to keep the baby from crying by being responsive.  We did try (and failed spectacularly)  to Ferberize at 5 months,  when I was not sleeping and going crazy.  Now I see that it was too soon to even try (sleep training before six months isn't even recommended,  no matter what my in laws say)  and I have realized that Baby Peanut is probably  not even a candidate for sleep training.

Ask Moxie has excellent posts about tension increasers and decreasers. A tension increaser gets more and more worked up as he cries,  and a decreaser calms down after a good cry.  I have a hard time with even the idea of CIO because I am a tension increaser myself: crying leads to feeling exhausted,  sick,  like the world is an awful place,  blerg.  It doesn't really help me process and feel better,  it's just an explosion of energy and them an awful long period of recovery.  If I have a good cry,  it usually takes me all day and all night to feel back to normal.  Crying is just not my cup of tea.

I think Cookie is also an increaser since he marinades in gloom and doesn't bounce back easily from anger or sadness,  but I am not as sure with him as I am with myself.  He just doesn't cry.  What I do know,  is that he is a terrible sleeper.  He fights sleep all day and all night,  wants to stay up playing,  gets in awful moods because he is tired and eventually he crashes.

So I don't think it's hard to guess that we have a tension increaser baby as well. Knowing that not responding to crying alters a baby's cortisol levels (cortisol being the stress hormone) up to 4 times the normal level,  I can't really justify to myself to let Eli cry in hopes he'll fall asleep alone and that he'll learn to "self soothe",  when I can't at 30 years old.  Some babies don't signal when they wake (so,  no crying)  but some babies do.  When do they *have* to stop signaling when they wake?  Like all things babies,  each baby is different,  and the neurological maturity each has will dictate when he reaches his milestone.

Last week I was talking with my friend Pam,  and she told me her grandma,  a 94 year old,  asked her if her toddler was sleeping through the night.  Her boy is 26 months old,  and she said yes,  of course he was,  and her grandma was surprised because he was very young and kids take a long time to sleep through the night.  So.  I guess,  somewhere between the time she raised her babies and now,  we decided babies had to be "independent sleepers" once they hit 6 months old.

I also found really interesting research about the vagal nerve, that might correlate with the tension increaser and decreaser concepts (I made this correlation myself,  so obviously might be wrong).  Some babies (specially preemies,  but many full term)  are born with an immature vagal system.  The vagal nerve controls the heart,  stomach,  breathing,  sucking and the facial muscles.  It's the nerve that controls our heartbeat when we need to fight or fly,  allowing it to speed up by releasing a "break",  letting us use more resources in time of need.  Immature vagal nerves don't put the break back on when the demanding activity (breastfeeding,  for example,  or crying)  ends,  making the baby feel like the danger,  so to speak,  hasn't passed.  So they are more difficult to calm.  Breastfeeding apparently helps the vagal nerve to mature,  but I think it can probably explain why some babies just don't calm easily after the crying starts, so CIO is just not going to work for them since it's physiologically impossible for them to calm down unaided.
Cookie asked how this can help us with our crazy nights and I guess it can't!  Except to teach me patience and let me be there for baby Peanut,  reassuring him that he is safe,  he is loved,  mama is right here.

Things my doctor said

You look sad.

I think you have post partum depression and we didn't catch it earlier.

How long has it been,  10 months?  Why didn't you come sooner?

We could give you some antidepressants,  though if you are still breastfeeding...

If you continue to feel bad and you decide to wean the baby,  we can get you on some meds.

----

Soooo. I am not on meds. I don't plan to wean Baby Peanut for a while.  My breastfeeding goal was one year,  and I feel like the worst of the PPD and PPA is mostly over.

I ended up going to the doctor because an unrelated problem.  It seems I might have some sort of allergy and irritation on the lady parts.  Funnnn. If the treatment doesn't work I'm in for some testing,  since it's making our love life pretty much non existent.  Meh. We have had some arguments and lots of guilt and unhappiness in that department.  The doctor says part of the problem is the PPD,  but there is definitely something else going on.  So.

Peanut continues to not sleep,  even worse than before.  Wakes every hour,  every hour and a half.  It's difficult.  Very,  very difficult.  I had stopped the reflux medication but I think we're going to go back to it, and hopefully the sleep will improve.  He's getting better at crawling though!  Still not quite there,  but getting there!

I've been reading a lot about sleep.  It's not helping to improve his sleep,  but it's very interesting and I think it's helping me to cope,  at least.  He'll sleep when he sleeps,  I guess!