Over the past few months, I’ve been told multiple times that I look tired.
That is a terrible thing to say to somebody’s face. And it is extremely true.
Among the small sample of expecting dads in my life, the biggest fear is lack of sleep. We’ve been sleeping our entire lives. We know exactly how we feel when we do and don’t get enough of it. We take it for granted and abuse our privileges when we’re younger, but we know just how much worse life would without it.
The cruelty of newborn sleep is that it makes everything that’s already incredibly hard significantly worse. All of those feelings of anxiety and concern and ineptitude and frustration are amplified when you’re barely able to string 15 minutes together over the course of the night. There’s a mental and physical toll that makes minutes feel like days and days feel like years. It’s the most unfair part of babyhood for both parent and child.
“Hey dude, that sounds really bad. Can you relax?”
I will sleep when I’m dead. Or when my kids are 18, whichever comes first.
The toddler was a nightmare sleeper for the first few months of her life. We thought we were making progress before she committed to a weeklong protest on our first family vacation. That became our breaking point, and we took to sleep training earlier than planned. Mercifully, she reacted well to it. It felt like we were kissed by an angel.
The baby, meanwhile, had early signs of karmic repayment as a decent newborn sleeper, but she hit us with a big “sike” and reverted to demon time from months 4-6. We think we’re beginning to emerge from the depths of her sleep hellscape, but it’s too early to tell and I refuse to jinx the situation.
In both cases, we struggled. We were religious about everything from the routine to the sleep environment, but nothing seemed to work. We spent almost every waking moment trying to solve sleep problems that just seemed outright unsolvable. Sleep stress impacted our thinking, moods, and marriage.
It doesn’t last forever - it just feels like it.
With all of that in mind, I expected there to be this huge holy shit moment when our sleep started normalizing. But the rubber band just slowly loosened over time. And now that we’re slightly out of the woods and have gotten through the most trying moments, I’ve actually found myself thinking even more about sleep. Specifically, wondering what we could have done differently to make it feel less apocalyptic.
You’re beginning to discover that I’m a big list guy, especially when it comes to documenting what I’ve learned. Hindsight is 20/20, but here’s what I wish somebody told me in simple, honest, and non-condescending terms before my first graveyard shift.
Your kid is 1/1. Never, ever forget this. Every baby is wired differently. Your kid isn’t broken, and you aren’t a bad parent. Just make sure to remind the bad sleepers of how much pain they put you through when they’re old enough to experience guilt.
It will suck. It doesn’t matter if you have one of those magical kids I mentioned last week. Even if you luck your way into a miracle sleeper at eight-weeks-old, those first eight weeks will be agonizing. There is a period of major suck for all parents, and regardless of what you read, who you consult, or how powerful your SNOO is, you will be awake throughout the night.
There is no perfect solution. If there was, we’d all use it. But there’s a reason there are dozens of competing sleep philosophies. They work for some people, but not for all. We became familiar with all of the leading concepts and, through trial and error, eventually found what worked for our kids. The worst thing to do is become radicalized by a single expert and beat yourself up when their methods don’t work.
But there are *corporate voice* best practices. You’re going to be in trouble if you just YOLO your way through newborn sleep. Every popular book has the same foundational set of rules. Routine, dark room, white noise, structured naps, etc. They may not feel like they're working in the short term, but we have seen those investments pay off as the kids have transitioned out of the living dead phase.
And it will get better. I ran into somebody recently who said that they were hiring a sleep consultant for their two school-aged kids. Pretty brutal, but within the realm of possibilities. Still, even in this extreme outlier case, things will eventually get better. Most of the time, the work you put in to develop good sleep habits will pay off long before you need to bring in a third party. And even though it is the worst thing to tell somebody when they’re going through it (seriously, do not say this to any struggling parent), the sleepless nights will, one day, feel like a fleeting moment in time.
Misery is comedy
So, is there a silver lining to all of this? Yes. Bad sleep will lead to really funny stories of misery that you’ll tell for the rest of your life. Two of my favorites:
Heart Palpitations
When the toddler was a newborn, I started off with the 1:30 a.m. nighttime feed. But I always had trouble falling back asleep once I put her down because my brain just stayed on high alert. Fast forward about six weeks and I noticed that it felt like my heart was beating irregularly during the day. Turns out, it was! I developed actual heart palpitations as a result of poor sleep.
I asked the manager (my wife) for a shift change, and got back into a normal rhythm. One of many “dads are soft” examples that I’ll reference forever.
Pack ‘n Play Insomnia
Quick recommendation: don’t introduce your kid to a Pack ‘n Play during their first-ever hotel stay. We took a road trip to visit family and thought a dark room at the Marriott and a baby tent were all we needed to adjust to our new surroundings. Here’s how that experiment turned out:
In-room camping turned into a horror movie. She wouldn’t sleep with the tent, without the tent, or in bed. The best we could do were 45-minute stretches on the floor. That vacation ended early. My back still hasn’t recovered.
Kid highlight of the week
We’ve officially entered the rainy season where I live, which means suitable weekend kid activities have been reduced by 70% for the next six months. The toddler is obsessed with books, so I took her to the best indoor playground chain in America: Barnes and Noble.
In the eyes of a 2-year-old, Barnes and Noble is like a library on steroids. All of the books in the world. Multiple levels. A cafe that serves steamed milk.
I had these romantic visions of bringing her to the kid’s section and letting her pick books for us to read together. Unfortunately, the kid’s section was on the second floor, which was only accessible by escalator.
We rode the escalator at least 50 times. Whenever I’d try to redirect her to the books, she’d say “okay, ONE book, and then we ride the escalator [pronounced excavator]”. In the four minutes we did spend in the reading section, she asked me loudly if a slightly chubby 6-year-old boy had a baby in his belly. While he was sitting directly next to us.
She didn’t break anything and we bought a copy of the legendary work Jamberry. 8/10 activity. We’ll be back.
I did see a pic of you on Facebook where you looked extremely tired. Doubt I was the only one to notice.