Q&A: smacking the kid to get to sleep

Anonymous writes:

"I have one baby who is 10.5months. My questions surround sleep. I hate putting the baby to sleep. It SUCKS. 

In our family and house, cosleeping and rocking baby and all the other "unusual" choices that american's hide are pretty normal. Now that the baby is mobile what it means now is that though when the baby wakes up in the morning, we all have to wake up. There is no 10-15 minutes of time that my husband or I can have while the baby plays. And there is no place where i can leave baby if she is being fussy and needs a nap but refuses to nap so I try to give her quiet time but that means I need to lay in bed with her. Then at night we put her down at 7 but that means until 9 or 10 when i go to bed she wakes up every 30 minutes (or every 1 hour) if we are lucky.. and that usually means another 15mins or so of settling her down to sleep again. Which means we just spend the 2 hours taking turns to resettle her.

We have thought about transitioning to a crib, because we suspect that cosleeping is the problem, and so i tried to first use the pack and play that we have to transition her. She would have none of it. I do all the tricks to get her into a deep sleep and then the minute i try to lower her into the pnp.. she is up and crying. I have left her in the pnp but she is one of those who gains tension by crying (beyond a little fussing) and so the most i have let her cry is about 20 minutes before i can't take it anymore. At that point she is so upset that she doesn't sleep or when she does it is really disturbed.

I can't handle the cosleeping anymore. I need for there to be a space for her where i can leave her if she won't nap. Or for her to play in the morning for a few minutes occasionally so i can get an extra 10 minutes. I just can't handle having to stop my life for sleep and it's gotten to the point that i have smacked her (and this is my shaming part). My mother used to do it to us. If we wouldn't settle down we would get a little smack just to remind us to stay in our place. And the thing is my memories of this implies that we were old enought to understand our behavior. But my daughter- she's a baby and i know she is but sometimes when i have to lay with her to put her to sleep and she is fussing and kicking, a little smack on her thigh gets her to settle down because i know that she will release that little bit of tension that she has and then settle down. But it makes me feel like the absolute worst piece of Turd in the world and yet there are days when i know that it will bring us closer to the goal of sleep and so i do it. It's only been a handful of times but it's been a handful of times too many. I KNOW that this is wrong. I KNOW that it is hurts her but yet I am at my wit's end some days.

My husband is at work all day and he will try to help on the weekends. We can't really afford to get someone to watch her and i have no family around to help out. How do i stop this? How do i not let sleep ruin everything?"

Oh, honey. Take a deep deep breath, and then let yourself cry.

OK, I'm actually starting to tear up a little as I type this, because I can remember so vividly being here when my older one was 10 months old, and being so afraid to admit to anyone that it was harder, not easier, than it had been at 6 months. What was wrong with me? He was supposed to be sleeping better, not worse. And I was supposed to be getting better at parenting, not worse. And yet I felt strung out physically and unable to give anything emotionally.

The good news is, it's normal. Tons and tons of us have felt this way at exactly the same point. I don't think it's a divide between cosleepers and non-cosleepers, either. I think some babies are just tough at this age. The bad news is it makes you feel like a complete failure.

I'm not really going to talk about the smacking, except to say that all of us--every single one of us--has done or will do something we regret. Whether it's something big or small, no one comes out of parenting a child having upheld our ideals every single second. Personally, I don't think the individual incidents are that worthy of note, but I do think they form a narrative and mood, and it's that context that shapes the importance of each incident. A few smacks right now are going to fade into nothing once you can get some of your reserves back to parent as lovingly as you do when you're not at the end of your rope. If you let the smacks become the foreground of the relationship, though, she's going to carry the same sad memories you do, and you're going to feel like a bad mother. Not good for either of you.

So. You need a plan to get some emotional space. It doesn't seem like staying asleep is her problem, it's just the cosleeping and getting to sleep. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I think the pack 'n' play (I believe it's called a travel cot in OZ and the UK--it's a fold-out playpen that can also be used as a baby bed, but is low to the floor) is just destined to fail for a couple of reasons: 1) The mattress is so thin it's really like sleeping on cardboard and a baby can totally tell the difference, and 2) it's lower to the floor than she's used to. Babies who start out in the PNP seem to be fine with it, but a baby who isn't put to sleep in one until almost a year is not going to be fooled.

I think you should jump straight to a crib*. A person can be philosophically opposed to "baby jail" all she wants, but once your baby starts crawling out of bed or making you as stressed out as Anonymous is, you change your tune pretty quickly. Or at least, I changed my tune pretty quickly. You definitely can find someone who needs to switch their child from a crib to a big kid bed who will lend you the crib for awhile or sell it to you cheaply. Try Freecycle or Craigslist if you don't have a friend who needs you to take a crib off their hands. (Just make sure not to use a crib that's older than 20 years old or so, since the bars are too far apart and the baby's head can get trapped. Also beware peeling paint, and old cribs with lead paint.)

Going cold turkey to a crib might be scary, but honestly, how much worse can it get? If you have the space, put the crib in another room. Then, at bedtime, do everything the same way you normally do, but instead of lying down with her in the bed, put her in the crib. You may have to sit in the room for awhile, or lie down next to her, but it's a different task mentally than getting her to sleep while cosleeping is. If you can get your husband to take a turn getting her to sleep, please try it. If she won't go to sleep for him initially, ask him to take any wake-ups from bedtime until midnight. (A surprising number of times, a baby who wakes up a ton for one parent will stop waking up for the other because there's just not the same payoff. Again, it seems to be about shaking up the routine.)

If you can get the bedtime routine to be less attention-intensive for you, you'll be well on your way to getting some of your emotional strength back. Another idea is to see if you can get a mother's helper. Even if you can't afford a regular babysitter, you might be able to afford a middle schooler who can come over for a couple of hours after school once a week. (I just saw my first mother's helper a few weeks ago. He's in college now, and is tall and almost a man. It made me feel old.) You might be able to leave the house by yourself, but even if you don't feel comfortable with that, the mother's helper can occupy your baby in one room while you do something else in the other, especially if that something else involves eating chocolate and reading a cheesy novel.

Whatever happens, cut yourself some slack and hang in there. You're not a mom who hits her kid, so recognize the smacking for what it is--a desperate reaction to a stressful situation. And this situation won't last forever.

OK, comments? Either talk about how horribly you thought you were going to lose it when your baby was this age (or any age, frankly), or comment on something you did that you didn't want to do (to comment anonymously, put an obviously fake URL in the URL box, and a fake email address in the email box) and what you learned from it.

* As I said, I don't think cosleeping is causing this problem, but I do think changing the sleep routine is going to give Anonymous some emotional space. You do what you do while it's working, and then once it's no longer working you switch to something else. If you're having this problem and your baby's a crib sleeper, you might try switching to cosleeping for awhile to see if that helps.

Comments

[Anonymous]

My heart goes out to everyone who has suffered from sleep deprivation. Here is my story: my kid slept poorly pretty much from the beginning. We transitioned him from a bassinet on my side of the bed to a crib in our room at 2 months. At 4 months we moved the crib to his room. His sleep neither got worse nor improved during these transitions. His sleep improved somewhat at 11 months, got worse, got better again at 15 months, and then got worse again. At 16 months, when it was taking me over an hour to get him to sleep for the night, only for him to wake up again in 2 hours needing another hour of soothing to sleep, I decided that something had to change. I was physically, mentally, and spiritually exhausted. I had no energy to take care of myself, my work, my house. My relationship with my husband was strained.

I had read all of the sleep books - baby whisperer, Ferber, Weisbluth, no-cry sleep solution. I tried various techniques involving no-crying for more than 5 months. No dice. So at 16 months, after an unsuccessful hour and 45 minutes of bedtime soothing, I decided to bite the bullet and give the Ferber method a try. I was committed to trying it for 5 days. If after 5 days it didn't work, I would give up. So the 1st night, I kissed the baby, said night-night and left the room for 5 minutes. He screamed. I went in, soothed, and left. My husband and I did this in 5 and then 10 minute intervals until he was quiet. It only took 30 minutes that first night. I didn't hear another peep until morning. The second and third nights took about 25 minutes, the fourth only 10. By the fifth night, he went into the crib without so much as a whimper. AND IT HAS BEEN THIS WAY EVER SINCE!

I couldn't believe that we went from having a baby who woke every 2-3 hours to one who would sleep for 10 hours straight. Every night! My baby is now 19 months old and I am just now beginning to feel rested and like my old self.

My advice to you is to take care of yourself. If you are fried beyond belief, you have to change the status quo. And believe me, I know how hard the idea is when you are just barely hanging on to the last scraps of your sanity. Even though I had been committed to not using any of the "crying" methods to get my baby to sleep, I ultimately needed to do something to get my baby to sleep better than he was. Seeing how much better I function now, and how much more loving and patient I am, how bedtime is no longer a struggle for any of us makes what we did seem like the best decision for all of us. Best of luck (and hopefully sleep) with whatever you decide.

[Amy]

Let's see. I screamed at #2 when she was about 4 weeks old because she was awake all night every night and I was going out of my mind. I let #1 vomit all over his crib in the process of CIO when he was about 10 months old b/c we were having same sleeping problems you are (and I let him do this for several nights in a row before I called it quits). So far, #3 hasn't driven me to lose it... but I can hear him crying as I type this and given that we are trying to get him to sleep in his crib vs. our bed or my arms... I think the "losing it" time is near.

[Sandrala]

Our daughter is 10 months. We swaddled for the first 2 months and in the last 1.5 months have been doing a modified swaddle at naptime. It's just a blanket tossed over her with the ends tucked under her, but I admit that I often think of it as a straight jacket. Once blanketed, I rest my thigh over hers. Now that her limbs are still, she can relax. She'll nurse, look at a book propped against by thigh (in this position, her eyes are droopy and closer to being closed for sleep), suck on a paci, and eventually fall asleep. At first it took longer for her to drift off and the process felt more like a struggle, but now she falls asleep rather quickly and without a struggle. Introducing the books to the routine really helped. When we lie down, I look at the clock and choose a time to stop trying if she doesn't fall asleep. She is very regular about her morning naps, but only recently has started taking a regular afternoon nap again. Sometimes the afternoon nap is on me in the Ergo or in the car. Hang in there. We've all been on the edge.

[Emily]

Hey rudyinparis
I don't think I saw anyone respond to your post specifically and you might not still be looking, but I wanted to say that you, like all the rest of us (myself included) are deserving of forgiveness. Forgive yourself. Try and get relief, which you also deserve and need, and it will be easier to find the empathetic side of your heart that I am sure you still show your daughter most of the time. Sleep deprivation and uncontrolled screaming unlocks parts of one's personality that are desperate and very deeply hidden, but which are nonetheless THERE in every single one of us. So don't think you are more horrible than anyone else who's done the same.

[julie.k]

Anon, you will survive this time. My little boy did not sleep a 5-hour stretch until he was 11 months old, and I was exhaused, frazzled, and a total wreck. I drove the wrong way down a one-way street. I had many nights of screaming/crying/yelling/stomping and loosing it. I wanted to throw the crying baby out the window. The level of frustration is indescribable.
I love reading all these stories. wow.

[Casey]

My 6 mo. old had been a co-sleeper up until a few weeks ago. After several sleepless nights of all three of us waking up every hour, I realized that he wanted SPACE.

He would nurse and then stretch out. And anytime I moved it would wake him up.

We started him in a baby pack and play in our room and then transitioned him to his own room.

I found that when he was in our room I was hopping up anytime he made a peep. In his own room it's a little further and longer for me to hop, and usually he's gone back to sleep by the time i have arrived.

He slept for 8 hours last night. Granted, I was still up every three and I thought I was going to pop. But overall he's sleeping like a champ.

My doula has a phrase: It's all within the realm of normal.

Good luck!

[Carmen]

Two things.
1. You are not an abuser.
2. I. Love. This. Site.

Here's why you aren't an abuser. I'm a survivor of a truly abusive parent (both emotionally and physically). I've forgiven her and accepted her as she is now, but I have not forgotten how I and my siblings were treated and still have nightmares where she does seriously f-ed up s#%t.

Here's my point. A true abuser really hurts their child. You smacked your child on the leg when she was frustrating you beyond measure. Was it right? Probably not, but you feel bad and you didn't truly even cross a line. I KNOW that you didn't smack her very hard and I'm sure it didn't really hurt her. My mother kicked me in the stomach until I couldn't breathe, tried suffocating me several times and called me horrible names. Now that's abusive. My brother was a non-stop cryer until he was about 8-months old (according to both my parents). He has coordination problems with one side of his body and my mother always talks about how he's had them since birth. I have this secret fear that she caused it by smothering him as a baby.

I know how frustrating an infant can be... I'm the first-time mother of a colicky, cry endlessly, nurse non-stop little boy who wouldn't stop kicking me as I nursed him for the first 8 weeks of his life. He's now a beautiful, pleasant 5-month-old who wakes every couple hours to nurse and takes almost 2 hours to put to bed most nights. He's a 40-minute napper who likes to take 3 to 5 naps a day... ah!

I have sooooo been there with losing my cool and I've had my times where I was a little too firm with putting him down and yelling right back at him when he wouldn't stop screaming. I felt like a total heel for the longest time over it until I talked to my best friend who is the mother of an 11-month-old. She said she's done the same stuff and felt just as bad.

I'm NOT saying that it's okay to get physical with a baby or that everyone does it, just to say that we're normal to get a little too frustrated now and then and since we're healthy NON-ABUSIVE parents, we recognize it in ourselves and take steps to calm ourselves before we truly do something we would regret. Now I watch for signs that I'm losing it. I notice I start getting fidgety, stew over all the stuff I'm not getting to do (mostly sleep or hang with my hubby) and I grit my teeth. Once I notice these things I either bring my son to my husband (even if he's asleep and needing to work the next day... he sleeps on the couch because the bed is too crowded... but that's another post!) or I put him in his pnp and leave the room to cool off.

You're a great mom... I'm sure of it because I know what a truly bad mom is like.

[susan]

I love you all, really, and am breathing a HUGE sigh of relief to know that I've done no worse than anyone else in those horrible blurry sleep torturous moments. And of course, in 2 weeks or 2 months or whenever, it will get better.

The one thing that I've found after screaming and walking out of the room with a door slam after plunking babe down roughly on the center of the bed to cry louder because now he's scared on top of whatever else was interferring with his inability to sleep, is that after my own tears and guilt I vow to never do it again.

Recently I asked my husband if he thought it would be cruel to reverse the baby monitors in 10 years and wake our Baboo up in the middle of the night. He bluntly said yes. obviously husbands don't always get it. Moms always understand.

I hope Anon that you can find a good FREE moms group to go to, at your community center or La Leche League group or swim lessons at the Y or wherever. I swear, this has SAVED MY SANITY pretty much weekly for the last 15 months!

[Michael]

Are you all serious?? This is exactly why some people should not be parents at all. Screaming at them, beating them... What does that gain you? The next time you lash out and "smack" (read ABUSE) your child, realize that you should be locked up, not coddled by s group of similar abusers.

[Carmen]

Puh-leaze! Could you be anymore dramatic?

Seriously Susan, I repeat, you're not an abuser:)

[hedra]

Sigh.

I've heard the same things from other people - how could ANYONE yadda yadda...

Humans have limits. We CAN be pushed past them, at times.

None of these parents thinks this is good parenting, Michael. Just that good parents can sometimes be overwhelmed and fail to cope. Especially where we lack skills or training, and even more when we are exhausted and aren't fully supported.

Most of my worst moments have been 'caught' by my DH, who recognizes when I'm not coping, and steps in. There's a downside to that - He recognizes my early signs of overwhelm faster and better than I do... so when I'm soloing, I'm not as good at spotting them. The reminder to spot my OWN early signs is a good one. I'll be working harder on the focus on that.

There are people who never ever lose it. Who never once have crossed their own personal line. These parents are IME unusual and rare. They either have been raised with superior skills and kindness, or they are excellent at suppressing their own needs and reactions... or they lucked out and got a child whose disposition is easy, understandable to them, or extraordinarily reliable. And they also usually have strong support systems, little or no PPD, and little other stress in their lives. I know one of these moms. Just one. And I know a lot of moms...

Dads often never see this in their wives - it is in the 2 AM feeding when they're asleep, or the mid-afternoon desperation and overtouched time when they're at work. Women often don't admit it to themselves, or their spouses. It is hidden, the 'just a bit too rough' the 'just a little slap on the leg, he didn't even blink, really, just kind of stared at me...' why even mention it? Next time we'll be better, we promise ourselves... and then we hunt and hunt for an answer, and often find a new way, a different skill, sometimes before a repeat, other times when we spot something is showing a pattern of weakness for us.

I know why Michael saw 'abuse' everywhere here. Abusers also say they're trying to change, hate being that way, etc. And abusers do often struggle when pressed beyone their limits. But I'm also from an abusive family system, and I also have done a LOT of research (my usual approach to a problem, LOL!) on abuse systems. Abusers have a system failure on an EMOTION, typically, that they cannot functionally process themselves. They MUST make someone else feel this feeling, or they become overwhelmed. Typically, it is fear or shame, and most often both. The overwhelmed reaction of the exhausted parent also brings out fear - the child is scared when we yell, etc. BUT, the moms here are under severe stress, not 'normal stress', and the system isn't one of constantly putting our own fear and shame onto the child, forcing them to express what we cannot bear to feel. Maybe there is someone here who functions that way, and perhaps they'll recognize it and get help. For the rest of us, normal human neuropsychological process has the same overall function (we're scared we're going to die from exhaustion, confused, overwhelmed, worried that we're failures as parents, etc. and we express anger over that, which triggers fear and confusion on the part of the child) the same FUNCTION, but not the same SYSTEM. We're not finding any and every area of interaction to bring this out in our child. It isn't our normal reaction to those feelings, even - it is only when we're physically pressed past our limits, in ways that ARE considered inhuman and unethical by world human rights bodies, that we break down.

I've been through my therapy years, and my counselors have found me sane, non-abusive, and wiser by experience than many that have not been through the horrors I've been through. I'm really twitchy about abuse issues, and tend to watch for them in myself like an anthropologist watching a new culture. I know there are times I blow it, but I also know that the human system is based on human parents, that we evolved with parents who are not super-human but rather a lot like ourselves. We're optimally functional in systems that have some messiness, and children in systems that are 100% perfect and conflict-free (usually at the expense of someone's internal process, but not always) tend to be (shown by research) easily broken by conflicts - depression and post-traumatic stress are more common in those kids. Not that I 'advise finding places to blow it' but that we know that when we blow it, and then repair the damage, reconnect, and strive to learn from the experience, continuing the respect the child's needs, our kids grow to realize that bad things happen sometimes, and then the world rights itself - often with some effort, but it does get there - and then good returns.

One of the lessons I got from Dr. Schore (dang, is that his name? I'll look later - neuropsychologist/neurobiologist) is that it isn't the blowing it that makes the difference, it is the RECONNECTING and 'un-blowing it' after that makes the difference. In abusive systems, the break occurs, but then no repair occurs - there is insufficient trust to actually repair the damage, or no effort is made, or the victim is offered comfort with one hand and blame with the other at the same time.

Our family system is based on respect for each person, each having needs, sometimes those needs being in conflict. Sometimes those conflicts erupt in a bad way - it can come in the form of a rebellious tantrum on the kids' part, or in a tangtrum on my part. I've been hit and bitten when they've been overwhelmed, and I've yelled and stomped my feet when I've been overwhelmed. We always come back to problem-solve, to reconnect, to re-establish our bonds at the end. I just watched my kids do this with each other recently - the oldest and the second had a conflict that led to bitter resentment and nobody's needs being met. They were angry, screamed at each other, and went away mad. They then each thought things through, problem-solved, and discussed the problem. Hurt feelings lingered, and so the one who had been the most bossy and rigid made a card for the one who had been most wounded (on his own, no prompting), and gave it to him. Reminded that they loved each other, they took that as the starting point, and then resolved their differences kindly.

Conflict is normal. No relationship avoids it. Working on how to resolve the conflict, and restore the harmony, by respecting the needs of all the parties, is what makes things work.

[Jessica]

These comments are horrifying. How can you people think that it's okay to smack and scream at an innocent child?! I think you're all in denial.

[Moxie]

Jessica, have you never felt the urge to hit your child?

What's the difference between doing it and not? Support, enough sleep, and having options. If you don't have those, it's awfully hard not to just smack.

The commenters here are either offering support in the form of sympathy and suggestions to get into a better place, or are asking for help themselves.

If you can't contribute something helpful to the discussion, please take your criticism somewhere else.

[Concerned]

I really hope you got some help to address your anger management problems. It's not her fault she's crying at bedtime. I'm not saying it's your fault, but hitting a baby is really not excusable. Infanticide typically occurs when babies cry a lot, and if your baby is driving you crazy with his or her tears, I BEG YOU, please put the baby in a safe place, and give yourself time to pull yourself together before trying to address the problem. I'm sure your baby (who is full and dry and burped, etc.) can cry for a little bit, and that will be superior to abusing her. Here is one of the many, many free resources for parents who are having a hard time: http://www.safebaby.org/anger.asp or call their 24 hour helpline: 866-243-BABY.

[Concerned]

Also, I agree with Jessica. Moxie, maybe it's time you looked yourself in the mirror. You aren't God's gift to parenting. I don't care how many people read your blog or post comments. So please, get off your high horse!

[akeeyu]

Concerned, did you go to your own link?

At the top of their second bulleted list of things that frustrated parents should do is this: "Ask a family member or friend to help." So, here we have someone asking the Internet to be a friend and help them out, and you're smacking them down.

You are full of win.

I guess you think that what the world needs is more frustrated parents who are ashamed and isolated and afraid of what people will say. We need fewer support groups, and more judgment groups. We need less information and more shunning. Truly, this will make good parents of us all.

/sarcasm