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I was that kind of mother-to-be. The kind who had bought and read all the top rated 20 baby and pregnancy books on Amazon. I invested more time and energy in preparing for the arrival of my baby then I did writing my master’s thesis. Okay, to be perfectly honest, I probably could have completed a PhD in the latest baby gadget trends. I literally dedicated all my time to being the absolute best mother I could be to my little prince.

 image by Tanja de Maesschalk

I was convinced that all those frazzled mothers were simply unprepared for the challenges of a newborn, or utterly lazy, or perhaps just downright incompetent. I smirked at all the other seemingly naïve parents to be around me who seemed completely out of the loop about the latest baby trends, less alone the proven granted sleep techniques.

By the time I was seven months pregnant, we had already purchased most of Babble’s 100 baby essentials and had just completed our non-Ikea nursery. The ones that we didn’t purchase were simply because the products didn’t make the cut under my meticulous scrutiny. I was only going to buy the absolute best for my little man (best defined as what all the other in-the-know parents were raving about). Almost everything had to be certified organic if I could get my hands on it. No polyester clothing would ever touch my baby–he would only sleep in 100% cotton, or organic merino wool.

I had all these aspirations too, utterly convinced that since I was going to be a stay-at-home mom, I’d have plenty of time to blog. I was counting on the infamous sleepy newborn phase to do my writing. My sweet baby would be my muse and I would have all the energy in the world because I was high on life. I wasn’t going to ride the current parenting trend of dis-shelved and self-deprecating mothers parading parenting fails. Nope. I was going to be a mommy guru ready to school mommy-to-be’s and failing moms on the secret of being a perfect parent.

In hindsight, I was trying to over-compensate for what was glaringly missing in my life – an extended family living close by. I have no mother, no grandmother, no sisters, no aunts around. I thought that by being overly prepared, I would have motherhood down to perfection and I wouldn’t notice such a gaping void in my life. I may not have a mother, grandmother, sister or aunt to guide me, but I assured myself that I did have baby manuals, twenty or so odd parenting books that guaranteed parenting bliss and a happy baby. Not to forget to mention, all the fabulous baby gear that would make any other neurotic first-time pregnant mom squeal with absolute delight.

       image by Tanja de Maesschalk

Armed with Gina Ford’s The Contented Little Baby Book and Dr. Harvey Karp’s The Happiest Baby on the Block, I was going to be the baby whisperer. These two books were my holy grail to parenting, a perfect hybrid of attachment/gentle/intuned parenting and babywise parenting. I even had two copies of each book, one in print and one digital. Never mind that I’ve never taken care of, or even been around a newborn before.  I would be the chic baby wearing, luxury stroller pushing mommy who had an exclusively breastfed baby that slept through the night, never experienced colic, was potty-trained by nine months and who brought absolute joy to who ever would meet him. What I should have read was the CTFD Method instead.

Then came Junior. Four weeks early to be exact. I was barely done packing my hospital suitcase and definitely had not yet purchased the perfect push outfit.  The saying “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans” could never have been truer at that moment.  Our birth experience was a physically traumatic, yet blissful delivery (birthstory is a future post).

image by Tanja de Maesschalk

The first three months passed by like a dream. We initially had struggles with breastfeeding, but with the help of some amazing angels (our maternity nurse, two lactation consultants, and mommy friends) and sheer determination, I was able to exclusively breastfeed. So what if he needed to be breastfed for 5-6 consecutive hours a day and wasn’t really sleeping all through the night? We had a happy, healthy baby  and for now, our little family was complete.

Starting at four months old, our precious baby decided that sleep was over-rated. He wasn’t the best sleeper to begin with, but this time around, his sleep pattern was erratic. For the next eight months, I was barely hanging on two to three hours of consecutive sleep.  He would wake up to nurse on average 12-15 times from the moment we put him down to bed at 7:00 pm till at 7:00 am. I was absolutely sure that I wasn’t being delusional because I kept a meticulous record of all his night wakings thanks to the Total Baby iphone app.

Junior was, in hindsight, actually quite difficult from the very beginning. The kind that was remarkably alert from the moment he was born. The kind that slept for a five hour stretch ONCE every three months. The kind that had this incessant need to breastfeed for hours on end.  The kind that refused to be put down in his crib, bassinet or stroller. The kind that needed to be constantly held regardless of whether he was awake or sleeping. The kind that couldn’t be alone even for just a mere second. The kind that would scream his head off when anyone but me or my husband held him. The kind that needed to be danced to sleep for hours until he would finally fall asleep…only to wake up twenty minutes later. The kind that needed to be held. Always. The kind that demanded every single piece of you and so much more when you think you have nothing left.

image by Tanja de Maesschalk

Well intentioned relatives, friends, acquaintances, and strangers would suggest: Swaddle. Unswaddle. Use white noise. Put him in the most quiet, serene spot in your home. Stop breastfeeding. Start formula. Introduce solids. Hang up black out curtains. Put him down.  Pick him up and baby carry. Let him cry it out.  Remember that he mirrors how you feel. Take him outside every single day. Co-sleep. Don’t co-sleep. Put him down earlier. Put him down later. Establish a consistent schedule.

I appreciated each and every single one of their advice and I tried my best to listen very carefully. I tried some of their suggestions and others I simply nodded my head to be polite, or when I wasn’t particularly at my very best that day, directly told them that what they were suggesting went against my primal instincts as a mother. I brought him to various general practitioners, pediatricians, and even had his head examined by a radiologist (there was another potential medical reason for it), dabbled into a bit of holistic medicine (cranial-sacral therapy), requested personal prayers from a Catholic priest and asked my devote Muslim friend to say a prayer for our family Insha’Allah. My husband and I only had each other and we knew in our heart of hearts that we couldn’t continue going on like this.

Eventually he did fall asleep for an hour or so during the day. I was quick to rejoice “Halleluiah, Praise the Lord! We finally did something right.” It didn’t take me long though to discover that he also developed a 6th sense- the type that knew exactly whether, or not I was by his side regardless of whether or not he was in REM or non-REM sleep. Getting him back to sleep was nearly impossible as he was almost always rejuvenated from his cat-nap and more than eager to explore the world around him. Hence began another not-so-glamorous mothering duty, a prisoner in my own bed, co-existing of sorts while he naps or goes down to bed for the day and me, resigned to find solace on the world wide web (phone-calls would wake him up of course).

The fabulous “aha” parenting moment came soon enough. My google ninja skills brought me straight to Dr. Sear’s 12 Features of a High Needs Baby : intense, hyperactive, draining, feeds frequently, demanding, awakens frequently, unsatisfied, unpredictable, super-sensitive, can’t put baby down, not a self-soother, and separation sensitive. Junior was the poster-child for a high needs baby. When I finished reading his article, a flood of relief overwhelmed me. So we weren’t the only parents to experience this after all. His behavior wasn’t a reflection of my failure as a first-time mother, or more accurately, lack of parenting skills. We weren’t alone.

image by Tanja de Maesschalk

I looked down at my sleeping son, took a deep breath, and cried until my tears washed my soul clean again. I then started to learn how to cope with my high needs baby. All I needed to do was love him, love him the way he needed to be loved. I was quickly baptized into another world of parenting, the gentler kind that encourages nurturing his sprit, of molding parenting approaches and family life based on the child’s needs and wants, and of simply slowing down and enjoying the gift of an ordinary day with my son.

The turning-point came eight months into our ordeal, right around his first birthday and when we moved into our new home in the middle of no where. He started sleeping continuously through the night, from 7:00 pm (ideally) till 6:30 am without waking up in the middle of the night. We are currently in the midst of self-weaning, only having to comfort nurse once or twice during his afternoon naps and when he goes to bed.

I am slowly, but surely waking up from this experience and emboldened with a new set of mommy skills. I found an overflowing amount of patience I never imagined I had. I am more compassionate. I am less quick to judge perceived parental failures. I am more inclined to be kind rather than be right. I am less inclined to boast about my parental successes or attribute any of my son’s accomplishments and milestones as a reflection of my parenting. I am in the process of healing. I am, overall, happier. And perhaps the greatest blessing of all with having a high needs-baby was that my little prince gave me the gift of grace in return.

I am incredibly empathetic to the mom who confides in me that she isn’t sleeping much and I well up with tears too, still fresh from the battle wounds of severe sleep deprivation. Now that my own fog is lifting (sleep deprivation does that to you), I aspire to write more about my experiences. I hope too that my blog can serve as a useful resource for struggling mamas, the kind that’s awake at 3am in the morning in need of some serious uplifting, a gentle reminder that she is not alone, that this too shall pass.