Take whatever I’ve said was the worst thing about new parenting, and throw it out the window. Because the 9-month sleep regression has been the worst thing to have ever happened. Seriously, I’m pretty sure I just had the worst night as a new parent last night, as my daughter woke up at 8:30 pm, 9:40 pm, 12:30 am, and then at 2:20 am, not going back down until around 3:30 am. Needless to say, my longest stretch of contiguous sleep was three hours, as my alarm went off at 6:30, in preparation for the workday.
Seriously though, this takes the case for the worst experience in new parenthood so far, because it’s not like sleep regressions of prior periods where her awake windows just changed, but she would ultimately still actually go to sleep; no, this particular sleep regression is where she sleeps at her usual times, and sleeps for a little bit, it’s just that she wakes up in the middle of the night, wide awake as a Karen on speed, and will not go back to sleep, and repeatedly stands up against the railing and screams, no matter how many times I reset her on her back and try to soothe her to sleep.
When she was still a newborn, waking up in the middle of the night was expected and mostly on our terms, as we set alarms to go off in order to wake and keep her on her feeding schedule, but right now, we have no idea whether or not a night is going to be zero wake ups, one, two, three or even four times waking up, wailing and needing some intervention. I can go into her room, calm her down and set her back on her side or back, but often times I’m one foot out the door before she goes ballistic, and I’m left feeling so shot, so beaten and just so frustrated with everything that I have a hard time thinking straight, most of the time in which I’m pretty sure I’m not.
Without question, this has been the worst part of new parenting yet. I know that title is only as secure as the next worst thing about new parenting to come around, but this one feels especially nasty, and it’s put me in this exhausted state of being where I don’t look forward to the evenings anymore, when I might get an hour or three of some time to myself to do me shit, but lately all that’s been encroached upon by an ornery and crying baby most of the time.
And nothing I do, or mythical wife does, is seeming to work during this regression. No amount of soothing, keeping company or even picking up and rocking gets her to sleep or stay asleep, and it’s only a matter of time before she’s screaming bloody murder and I’m left feeling like a failure clown of a parent who can’t even keep his kid under control. I’ve never lost my cool or felt so defeated and frustrated as I’d ever felt during the last nine months, and I know I’m far from the only parent to have ever endured this, but I can say without any hesitation nothing so far has been as demoralizing as the nine-month sleep regression.
Although seldom do I want time to speed up while I’m with my daughter, I sure as heck wouldn’t mind if I could just skip ahead to when this regression period is over, and I can actually get some slightly below-average but at least still six hours of sleep, just once. I’d take explosive diapers and getting clawed by baby nails repeatedly, over this particular sleep regression, any day of the week, because at least I can still have some predictable down time to decompress and get some actual rest from time to time and not feel like a zombie as a result.
Frankly, I feel like this is a fraction of the words I had swirling in my head between the hours of 2 and 3 am last night of an unhinged and exhausted new parent, and I don’t feel like this is really conveying the frustration and rage I was feeling, not at my daughter, but at the horrors of the situation that is the nine-month sleep regression. Obviously I know that I’m not the only parent to ever endure this, but damn does it suck, and at least I can provide a more accurate and honest reaction to the concept, versus all the clinically sociological explanations of it found all over the internet that make it sound like a minor inconvenience that just needs to be patient through a little while over.
Seriously, this has been the worst part of new parenting, hands down. The genocidal thoughts that were going through my head throughout the evening that wouldn’t end aren’t even close to being expounded upon by my exhausted words of frustration captured here in my brog.
