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Sleep deprivation and its fallout
By ella | November 16, 2006
Nightimes around here are like an affair with the bad boy of the neighbourhood: they seduce you with longing but leave you feeling tricked and used. The dark hours lying awake, crushingly, stupendously tired but forced awake by a crying or hungry baby or by a toddler with nightmares or coldiness, are desperate and there have been too many of them recently.
Ben is halfway through a dairy-free, soya-free diet to see if he is allergic or intolerant to either. So far the only thing it has proved is that I don’t have enough milk to replace the calories he is no longer getting from the (little) food he was eating. We are also awaiting results for tests for malabsorptive disorders like coeliac disease. Depending on the results of those he will face either an endoscopy or a colonoscopy, x-rays and other invasive sorts of things. It is of some consolation that he has no way of knowing in advance what lies ahead.
He remains chirpy. He is cruising. He smiles and chats to strangers. But he is painfully thin, pale and still constipated (the note on the board for tomorrow reads, if Ben no sweetcorn in poop then give suppository - for I ‘track’ and compare progress of sweetcorn and blueberries through the three boys. And I certainly think that’s a skill I will be able to put on my future cv/resume). At home he is irritable, tired, unwilling or unable to eat and generally not so much fun to be around. I say unwilling to eat because it has occured to me that there may be a psychological reason for his not-eating. At first I considered that the noise level in the house might be frightening him so now the dogs are locked out, the boys are bribed to sit and eat with a moderate level of noise but it hasn’t made any difference. I tried him in the highchair, on my lap, milk before, no milk before, soft food, hard food, little bits, larger bits (the one thing he is insistent on is NO SPOON FEEDING, EVER), off my plate, from the boys. Nothing makes any difference. Then this evening, I sat on the floor with the baby, a banana and my dogs, my parents’ dogs and a neat trick of throwing small bits of banana into the dogs waiting, salivating mouths (hey, whatever it takes, right?) and the baby ate pretty much the whole banana. His previous best was two small mouthfuls. This makes me happy but worried. He CAN eat a banana! He wants to eat a banana! He could be putting on weight before my eyes! But then, he’s playing me! There’s some psychological reason for not eating, which he forgot about while distracted by four spaniels dancing in front of his face for lobbed-about bits of banana. And what worries me about that is, if there is a psychological reason for not eating, nine times out of ten it is because of something the parents are doing (I watch Supernanny, I know about these things).
This morning, having had three hours sleep, two and a half hours awake, and one more hour’s sleep (that last hour made me feel even worse on waking, I shouldn’t have bothered) I was withdrawn, feeling sick with tiredness. The baby woke beside me chatting and cooing and doing everything to elicit our regular morning cuddle. When I sat him up with a toy, stonily faced, and avoided looking at him because I felt so angry and tired he looked at me in such confusion. It was only as I saw his face eventually start to crumble that I realised what a bitch I was being, to my ten month old baby!, and I picked him up and let him nuzzle into my neck. If I can be like that deliberately, what else is he picking up from me under the surface, subconsciously? And is his not-eating a manifestation of my irritability at my chronic tiredness or a manifestation of his unhappiness if I shout at the older two (thankfully not often but it does happen)? These are the questions that plague me in those long dark hours when I should be asleep.
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Read More:
- What Supernanny would do about the child that spits
- Sleep deprivation, continued
- Sleep deprivation
- Baby sleep and sleep training: Part One
- A little less bad tempered
5 Comments
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Oh sweetheart, I’m so sorry things are rough. I know there isn’t anything I can say that will help, but I am thinking of you. I hope he improves soon, and I hope you get more sleep soon. It always seemed to me in my darkest stretches that I’d get just about to that breaking point when suddenly the stars would align and I’d get a life-saving 4 hours of sleep in a row or an extra nap when I didn’t expect one or something. I hope something like that happens for you soon.
Ella, this is so hard. I know that feeling of being so bitchy to my own child. One day at a time, I guess? Ihope you can get some rest.
I’ve so been there. One day I barked at my not yet three year old daughter, “what are you a two year old” and she stood there staring at me and I realized, you ARE a two year old. I’m sending the sleep baby sleep vibes over the ocean…
Ella, I cannot believe what you have been going through. It is terribly stressful - try not to be so hard on yourself. The boys will get through all of this.
Ironically, my Harry was having such a rough start to his year at school (due in large part to his teacher) that we considered pulling him from school also. I am a public school educator - NEVER did I ever think I would think this way. My cousin was so upset at one time, she had all FOUR of her boys home with her. They are smart, delightful kids - very well mannered and curious. Now, most of them have chosen to go back to school which is fine. They needed what they needed at the time.
I’m thinking of you and wish I could ship you some sleep!!!
Sleep deprivation is so awful isn’t it? When my daughter was doing something like that to me (she finally started to sleep through at around 12 months), I was so grumpy and joyless that my partner thought I had post-natal depression. And it certainly doesn’t help when your child prefers to throw food rather than eat it, either (which I’m also going thru, albeit to a much lesser extent than you).
I don’t think you should blame yourself for Ben’s lack of eating. You’re doing everything you can - no mother is perfect, we just think we’re supposed to be.