What Your Baby Knows

Article: How come my baby doesn’t sleep anymore? (share your comments, click here)

Did your baby sleep…well, like a baby, for the first few months, and then suddenly stop sleeping?

It can be so frustrating, when you've gotten used to a regular bedtime routine, been able to look forward to a few hours - if not all night - of a break, and suddenly your baby goes on a sleep strike.

You might be feeling at a loss as to what to do. Why don't the same methods work anymore? What's going on with your baby? You may wonder if something is wrong, if he's teething, if he's sick…is this going to last forever?

Most information will tell you it might be teething, or a normal phase or a growth spurt. These might indeed be accurate, but I am offering another idea to consider.

One thing that doesn't get much attention is what's going on now, in your life, that might be affecting the stress level of your baby? And of those things, are any of them possible triggers of past memories of emotionally upsetting experiences?

Those are big questions, with some big statements behind them.

Past experiences? What do you mean?

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Has there been any change in routine recently? (Mom going back to work, an illness in the family, more stress than usual…)

• What is the emotion behind the waking up? Is your baby happily playing, and just not tired? Is she crying? And if so, is she sounding angry, sad, or scared?

• What happened in the past - prenatally or during birth or early infancy - that might have been upsetting for your baby? If you aren't sure that your baby can remember any of that, let's just say she can, allow yourself to be open to the possibility. Was she separated from you at birth? Was there any obstetric intervention that may have been scary for her, like forceps, Cesarean section, or cord around her neck?

• Can you see any correlation between what is happening now - pain from teething, more family stress, separation from mom - and what might be upsetting from the past?

Another thing to think about is that babies are sensitive to cycles in life. They may have upsetting memories come up around their birthday, or the correlating month in utero that was stressful for them. For example, at five months in utero, if there was a stressful experience for you, your baby may need to process it at five months old.

Or, perhaps your baby gets fussy every night at the same time which might correlate to, say, the transition period during your labor that was stressful for your baby.

This happened to me and my daughter when she was a newborn. My daughter woke about two a.m. every night and got fussy - not really crying, but unable to sleep. When I remembered that's when I went into transition during her birth, I was able to help her feel safe enough to go into her feelings more deeply, and she cried for a long time, and then settled into a long sleep. Once I recognized it, she only needed to process those feelings twice before she never woke up at that time again (as an infant!).

So if you've determined there might be something more than teething going on, what do you do with that?

If you see any patterns or correlations, or if you are willing to play with these ideas, you are probably wondering what the heck to do about it, and trying desperately to deal with feeling bad that something upsetting even happened for your baby at all!

We all want the best for our babies. When we discover something that upset our child whether or not we had any control over it at the time, we automatically go into "parental protection mode" and berate ourselves if we failed to prevent upsets for our infant.

If that is what you are feeling now, STOP. Take a breath, and remind yourself that you did the best you could with what you had. AND comfort yourself that even though we can't always prevent our children from having upsetting experiences, they are all resolvable.

Here are some tips to begin:

• Talk to your baby about his birth, or any upsetting experience you think he had. Speak slowly, and don't expect your baby to respond any particular way at first. Just open the door to letting him know that YOU know he may have had some feelings about he still needs to share.

• Learn to be aware that your baby is affected by your stress levels, what you do, and can process information if it's told to her slowly.

• Talk to your baby. Tell her what's going on, make sure to help her know the difference between what happened in the past and what's happening now.

• Affirm her experience as true: "Yes, I know I wasn't there for you right after you were born. That must have been scary and hard for you."

• Reassure your baby that then was then, and now is now: "I am here for you now. Even if I go to work, I come back and you are not alone."

• Get some support for yourself if you are having your own feelings about what is going on for your baby. Your baby is very sensitive to your emotions and thoughts, and if you can separate what you are feeling from what your baby is feeling you'll be able to really be a strong presence for your baby to feel safe with.

Bringing more awareness to what your baby might have experienced in the past, or what he might be experiencing now, can help you to parent in a way that supports your baby to resolve emotional upsets early.

Posted under: Newsletter, about sleeping