I think you'd be hard pressed to find a parent who's raised a child and not had any anxiety around their baby's sleep "issues." One of the best pieces of advice I've ever received is this: "Don't ever read books about your baby's sleep. It'll just make you feel guilty about your child's sleep situation."
But let's face it. Even if your child is the perfect sleep angel, most parents freak out if something changes (or persists, for that matter). And they reach out, often unnecessarily, for advice.
From about week 3 to week 6, I was freaking out and constantly reading books, internet forums, articles, etc to figure out why my baby won't sleep during the day (sounds ridiculous now, that I was even worried about that!). I tried all sorts of things, and to be honest, none of them worked. What worked was AJ matured and figured things out a little better. I matured and figured him out a little bit better. And I let go of expectations. He slept 5 hour stretches for about 2 weeks, then regressed back into waking every 2-3 hours. Then, sort of magically, around week 9, he started sleeping 7 hour stretches at a time. It was A-MAZING. We went the last 9 weeks like this, sleeping 7 hour stretches at a time. Life felt normal again. I had enough sleep to function during the day, no problem.
And now, he's knee deep in his predicted 4 month sleep regression, which, from what I hear, is a very LONG regression. He's waking often at 4 AM now. WIDE awake. Playing with his feet and chewing on things awake. Sigh. For about a week now, I kept asking myself what I'm doing wrong - what I'm doing differently. I'm not sure why it's so hard for me to digest that it's NOT ME doing something differently. This is normal!!! But it sure doesn't make life easy. Sure, I remember getting up every 1-2 hours at the beginning, but boy my body's gotten so used to the 7 hour stretches...
So I'm breaking my rule today and giving you guys something to read up on. Yes, it's about infant sleep. No, it's not intended to make you feel guilty. It's a good reminder that most sleep issues, no matter how "wrong" it feels, is probably normal. It's those darn expectations again. But let's face it, sometimes, accepting life is what parenting is about.
Happy reading. Time to go refill my coffee.
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