Humpty Dumpty

Soon after Quinn's first birthday, something bad happened. Our sweet daughter--who 95% of the time during the first year of her life, went to sleep quietly each night in her crib, after a warm bottle and a brief snuggle in the rocking chair--was kidnapped. In her place, someone left another baby who looked a lot like her…but this baby cried, a lot. And this baby did not sleep.

The timing of this exchange was uncanny for a few reasons.

The first reason is that I had just been spending a lot of time marking her first birthday by thinking about just how totally perfect and wonderful she was, and how I was completely in love.

The second reason is that it was at the beginning of a two-week vacation that we were very much looking forward to, and during which we had imagined we would accomplish many great things.

The third reason is that she timed this metamorphosis to take place on a night when we had friends over for dinner. When I put her to bed and she started crying, I returned to the table, apologized, and hoped she'd sort it out. Five minutes turned into ten which turned into forty-five. Our friends said things like, "Don't worry! It's not bothering us." That's nice, I first thought to myself and then said out loud, but it is bothering me! Sure I felt bad that the background music to our meal was screaming, but also I felt bad that Quinn was so upset.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a little tough love now and then. I've been practicing it on Sam for years. I was happy to let her "cry it out" because in doing so I would be able to demonstrate, to myself and Sam and our friends, that I am still very much in control in my relationship with Quinn. That it's my way or the highway, you know? Well, that's all a lie. All I wanted to do was go up there and hold her. But, I waited. I gave it what I thought was a valiant effort: I let her cry for four solid hours. The problem was that she didn't get it out. She cried, but she never quit. I quit. I quit dinner, I quit pretending, I quit dishes, I quit trying to be a good host. I just left the table, went upstairs, picked her up and felt very very bad for having made her go through such an ordeal. She feel asleep instantly on my shoulder. A little while later, when I made it to my own bed to lie down, I knew why she had been screaming: nasal drip, an angry sore throat, a pounding head. I was sick and so was she. She had passed her first birthday without ever getting sick…ever as in not once, but this was the onset of her first cold.

That was the beginning of what felt like a very long road. Keep in mind that Sam and I had no experience dealing with a bad sleeper. We had no solutions and no stamina. All we had was each other: to yell at, snap at, insult…two stuffed dolls just waiting for the pins.

Each night we'd try to soothe Quinn into a happy place so she'd go to bed. Each night as soon as we approached the crib, she'd start screaming and holding on for dear life. Some nights we just admitted defeat from the start and one of us would set up in the chair, prepared to hold her until she was asleep. If she was deeply asleep, we might be able to sneak her into the crib and tiptoe out. To be sure, we'd sit in the chair for an hour or more, listening to her snore. The chair squeaked when you tried to get out of it, but if you froze halfway up, and tried not to move, she might stir and then settle again. Or, she might not. And then you'd start over again. The worst torture was on the nights when you'd successfully get her up out of the chair, over the side of the crib, down out of your arms, and onto the mattress still asleep...only to have her scream the moment you slipped silently out of the room.

Other nights, when no one was here to witness it, we tried the cry-it-out routine again. I've read some books about this. I've read about how the first night or two can be really hard on the parents. I've read about how some babies will even cry for an hour or, would you believe it, two!?! I've never read about any babies who cried for ten hours straight and only quit then because their parents had already caved…but that's what my baby did, more than once. I'm worried about the future, I'm not going to lie; we're about 0-5 against her—things don't look good.

At some point in that sleepless blur I read something about a period of separation anxiety that generally happens right around the first birthday, a time when the baby realizes for real who her parents are and who her parents are not. And, if you're doing things right, the baby insists on you and rejects those who are not you. As I thought about it, I realized she was doing that more and more. The book said that this phase can also interrupt a baby's sleep—babies who once went to bed willingly might resist, and babies who could put themselves back to sleep when they woke up in the night no longer could. The book said the sleep interruption might last up to three weeks.

For three weeks, Sam and I learned to dread Quinn's bedtime. The closer we got to having to put her to bed, the closer we got to the torturous screams. The evening hours, which used to be ours, were gone. We either took turns staying awake to hold her so she could sleep, or we both writhed in misery listening to her scream. A couple of times, out of total desperation, we just brought her to our bed where she'd sleep peacefully and we wouldn't sleep much at all for fear of suffocating her. I would have gladly done that every night if someone could have told me that it was, in fact, just a phase and it would end. We wrestled nightly with whether to hold her and comfort her and let her sleep close by, or whether in doing so we were turning our once good and independent sleeper into a bad one who would never again sleep without our help. The evening hours were confusing and interminable. The daytime hours…well, I don't know what the daytime hours were like because I don't remember them…except for the bickering, I remember that.

We started to think we'd never get our baby back. And that we'd never be able to go out again, because how could we possibly leave her with a babysitter or, for that matter, leave a babysitter with her? We worried our friends would no longer want to be friends…no one would ever come over again. We started to worry that our marriage wouldn't survive…okay, I started to worry about that; Sam's not quite so dramatic. But for sure we started to think we couldn't handle it. And then it stopped—right at the end of three weeks.

By then, of course, all of our immune systems were shot and so we've spent this last week taking turns going to the doctor's office. Three weeks after Quinn had her first cold, she had her first fever. It was horrifying—she was hot to the touch all over—hot like a right out of the oven baked potato. And she was lethargic. I started to believe there could be nothing worse than a lethargic, feverish baby, until I woke up one day to a lethargic, feverish baby with hives all over her legs. The doctor said she had "a raging and inflamed ear infection." I've got a sinus infection and a rash on my neck where a new necklace used to be. Sam's got symptoms too: when he tried my new Neti Pot to flush out his nose, the water went in one nostril and came shooting out his mouth. I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure your plumbing is not supposed to work that way.

It's all okay…I'm starting to feel sure we're going to make it because we're sleeping again and frankly, right now, that's all that matters…that and the fact that she's not lethargic anymore. Tonight I watched her figure out how to put one of her small stacking cups inside a larger one. She's mastered disassembling things, but until now hasn't put them back together again. Tonight she put the small green cup inside the larger yellow one, and she swirled it around so it would make noise. And, when the small cup flew out of the larger one, she doubled over laughing…and then she did it again and again. Now, two hours after I put her to bed, she's still sleeping and I'm still smiling with the sound of her laughter in my ears, thankful it's all been put back together.