Regression

Being a mom makes you public property: ask anyone who has ever been pregnant or with a kid in a public place. People you don't even know feel free to touch you, counsel you, scold you and ask you extremely personal questions. At times it's annoying, but most of the time it is just dependable, a little odd but very tolerable. I understand the impulse, too, as I once saw a woman at the mall with her newborn and her breast pump (neatly disguised in its clever backpack, same as mine, which is how I recognized it). It took all the self-control I have not to double back to ask her if her kid was having trouble latching and whether she was pumping instead of traditional breastfeeding (like me). I think the important part of that story is that I DIDN'T ask. I didn't assume, like so many people do, that this is an appropriate way to talk to a stranger, even if I was dying to know why should would be carrying such a clunky thing around with her and where on earth she thought she was going to use it in the mall.

A big question I hear all the time these days is "Does she sleep through the night yet?" It's a fairly benign question, but the "yet" really rubs me the wrong way. It seems to be tacking on an expectation or a standard that infuses the question with judgment. Or maybe I'm just sensitive. No one wants to admit her child isn't keeping up with developmental milestones. Sure, since darling C. was about a month old, I could answer that she pretty much does sleep through the night, which would always earn me smiles and congratulations, as if I have some supreme control over how my kid sleeps. I don't abdicate my responsibility as a parent completely here, but I think with young babies, the ability to sleep through the night is more about their needs, temperament and personality, not some super-special parenting technique or regime I've implemented. But while I refuse to take credit for her sleeping through the night (Nate and I would often wake up after 6 hours sleep and feel incredulous at our luck), I can't help but feel like I'm doing something wrong now that she's regressing.

That's right--darling Clementine no longer sleeps through the night. Nate says she hasn't been the same since we took her to the Christmas party and witnessed her amazing meltdown, and I can't help but feel like it is thus something we caused. Shortly after her big night out, she started waking up every couple of hours all night and being a bit of a fusspot during the day. As Christmas rolled over us, the fussiness increased, along with the number of times per evening she awoke. Last night, she woke up every hour to fuss, squirm and sometimes eat. Where, oh where, have we gone wrong?

During these parental crises (OK, that might be a dramatic way of phrasing the times when things are a little less than perfect), I always start to doubt my instincts. Or maybe I just don't have any instincts and begin to shop around theories and ideas about how to solve the problem. Regardless, I find myself in a state of doubt, cruising the internet, asking friends and family, looking for books on the subject. I develop and abandon dozens of fix-it strategies in my head and do my best to keep the frustration at bay. Why is this? I believe parenting should be a fairly instinctive project, but I always jump ship on instincts and look for others to throw me a life line during hard times. Sure, a positive spin on that is the whole it-takes-a-village idea. But I fear this insecurity is due to the increasing scrutiny I feel in the world as a parent--the subtle cluck of a tongue, the raised eyebrow, the outright disagreement with other moms that makes me feel like my failure in this arena will result in my kid's ultimate fucked up life. Other moms (especially those who no longer have young kids) are a pretty judgmental lot, and it takes a lot more effort and self-confidence than I can often muster up after 4 hours of sleep to tune them out.

So just who is regressing here? Sure, Clementine's sleep habits have regressed to those of her newborn self, but what about her mom? I feel like I have regressed to my middle school days, allowing the pack to dictate how I should behave or allowing myself to be swallowed by insecurity whenever I take my own stand.

And none of this resolves why Clementine is waking up so often. She is teething and growing, which I imagine causes her more than a little distress and discomfort. The little bit of a schedule she was on has been disrupted by the holidays which may be throwing her out of whack. We're inconsistent in our use of her crib at night--could that be what's upsetting her? It's hard to not be able to reason with her and hear her pinpoint exactly what's wrong and what will make it better. It's also hard not to extrapolate and think that if sleeping is this hard for her now that we are launching ourselves into years with a difficult child. How can we be raising such a fussy little child?

For now, I comfort myself that this is just a stage she will grow out of shortly. People always have a hard time believing anything will get better when they're in the thick of it, so I'm trying to remember all the "dire" situations I've lived through in the past--breakups and embarrassments, fights with friends, depression. Still, I can't help but wish I had a magic wand...