Sweet Dreams?

Sleep, as we have known it for the last 15 years of our lives as a married couple, has been abandoned. We are now on the new Scott Edward regime.

For the last two weeks, we have been regimenting ourselves to getting up every couple of hours to feed him. At first both of us saw the night through in the same way, sharing duties. Then we came up with the idea of the 'Night Shift' and one of us would stay on duty the whole night while the other got a night's sleep. We sort of do half and half now with one doing one half of the night, the other taking over the baton halfway through and seeing out the rest of the night. This seemed to be going well, with the 'on duty' parent snatching bites of sleep between feeds and winding. This sort of routine was working and we have not felt too exhausted for the last week of it.

Then something changed. Well amongst all the change a 50 year old bloke confronted with a new born son, this was just another 'curve ball' in reality. The whole process of bringing a baby into the world at my age is all about change in every department. But this one caught us unawares. I realise that even that is a dumb statement - as a new parent at 50, everything has caught me unawares.

Okay, let's get this into perspective - just when we thought we had got the whole sleep -feed - wind - sleep cycle off pat during the nights, another twist occurred to set us off balance. Firstly, he seems fairly nocturnal in that he feeds and sleeps soundly most of the day in regular patterns and his sleep is usually deep and undisturbed. At night, he has always been less regular in feeding intervals and he takes a while to wind and then get back to sleep. In the last few days these irregular feeding patterns have now got an extended period of winding which now includes some real distressful crying which starts almost as soon as you put him back down to sleep in his basket. It means that the cycle is now longer punctuated by periods of sleep in which the 'watcher' can rest but the whole cycle does not have defined start and end points - it's pretty much feed - wind - cry - feed. This means that the watching parent really gets little or no sleep at all, and none of any quality.

Splitting it during the night has helped a little and so at least each gets a few hours in a room without interruption but it does mean that we sleep separately. The first thing we did was to take the advice of a friend and his wife who have been so generous in a 'materials' way but also in imparting their knowledge. They had similar problems with one of their daughters and they found that the feeding bottles they used introduced too much air into the feed causing wind to the extent that the child got 'colic'. By changing the bottles to Dr. Brown's anti-colic special bottles, the problem was quickly alleviated.

First up, we use Tommee Tippee bottles and the steriliser unit which we had found great to date. So we switched yesterday to Dr. Brown and they don't naturally fit in the steriliser to start with but they have a special air reservoir system which makes feeding a lot easier, faster and definitely introduces less air - manifested in very little milk having to be cleaned away from the mouth and neck. Burping is very much easier and that is very noticeable. But we still haven't got rid of the main problem which seems to be trapped wind in junior's fledgling digestive system. This seems to be what is causing the problem.

So we have looked up colic and doctors generally diagnose this based on the 'threes'. i.e. it starts at around three weeks old, they cry inconsolably and loudly for three hour stretches and it happens around three times a week. Colic is likely to occur anything up to three months after being born and seems to be spasmodic pains in the abdomen causing very disturbed sleep. For the parent, it can be excruciating as normal methods of consoling and soothing seem not to work and the screaming can get to a high pitch. After a three hour stretch, many parents at least regret having the child and some consider the possibilities of violence. These are natural responses, allegedly, although if anyone contemplates actual violence they should seek help immediately.

However, the symptoms are much more pronounced than Scott has. Usually colic comes with inconsolable prolonged periods of high pitched crying, bunching of fists, scrunching of knees, red face and they wake from short sleeps with a start and much crying. But it is fair to say, he is beginning to show signs of this. First thing that is encouraging is that it is quite normal, according to Miriam Stoppard in her book on the A-Z of Common Complaints. The second is that she asserts that there is nothing physically wrong with the baby and the parents are generally doing nothing wrong - it's just the way it is in about 20% of babies.

There are various methods prescribed to help - lots of cuddling is one and this argues soundly against the regimented routine that the likes of Gina Ford put forward. Research has shown that responding to a baby's cry with cuddles and holding is not connected to any future dependency on such response - if anything, it promotes a much closer relationship with parents in later life. Rhythmical rocking or walking, swaying is often helpful, firm holds which have contact with the abdomen are also recommended which help the passage of wind. Stoppard promotes much swaddling in sheets and blankets and then put them down (this has worked a it for us in very short bursts) helps. Stoppard recommends a dummy though another book we have argues strongly against dummies as they become a rod for your own back for the future. Finally, various ways of laying the baby on their tummy or your shoulder helps produce a small pressure on the lower regions and a warm bath is also helpful.

It seems that in our case it is trapped wind in the new digestive system. He will cry out very loudly, contort, stretch, bunch up and eventually out will pop some wind from the rear exit. This almost spectacularly covered me in a jet of poo yesterday which thankfully fell short of me as I reached for a pampers wet wipe.

As I write, there seems no sign of all this now that the sun is up, he has a full tummy and he is relaxing in his vibrating chair - he is sleeping the sleep of a very contented baby. As soon as I stop typing, I shall stretch out on the couch and catch up a few z'ds I missed out on last night.

Ah, no I won't - the dogs are ready for a long walk. Parenting and dog owning mean that you have a very full day indeed.

On a final note, tomorrow I go back to work. Two days in Paris and then back home will leave my wife alone with junior for a night for the first time and this contract will probably mean plenty of those. We feel we have not quite got the whole regime sorted and this new cycle is a threat to our sanity unless we can break the cycle. The next few days may be very long ones.

So I ask myself again - do I feel this more because I am 50? If I were 20 or 30 would I be finding lack of sleep challenging? Well the odd thing is that I am one of those people who has risen early every day and love to do so. Short hours of sleep are quite usual for me so that is not the challenge - it is the intermittent nature of the sleep and the fact none of it is very deep. I am sure my age makes it worse but realistically if I were 20 or 30 years younger I would still feel much the same way.

20 or 30 years ago, I would not have had the facility to write this and tell everyone.