Sleepless@Seasons Park

Nowadays, Sophie would occasionally let me put her next to me on our bed and coax her to sleep. Most of the time, she wants me to hold her until she falls asleep. After that, I can very gently lower her into her own cot bed. On super good days, she is alright with Ah Gong, Ah Mah, Naenae or papa doing it. If she wakes up in the middle of the night, I am able to pat her back to sleep on our bed. Baby experts will definitely frown and wag their fingers at me, but to me, this is already a vast improvement from how she was before.

Prior to this, she had to be held until she was deeply asleep before we could put her down on our bed. We had to surround her with pillows and keep a watchful eye on her as she slept. She would wake up and cry if I try to put her in her cot bed. When she was even younger, she would cry her heart out whenever she was sleepy until she finally fell asleep, probably out of exhaustion. She also had to listen to my singing... although I fail to see how it could have possibly worked.

When we started depriving Sophie air-conditioning, she could not sleep at all. She would cry as her head became wet with sweat. No matter how we turned the fan towards her, she still woke up sweaty and cranky. It was a painful period because cold, dry air gives her sensitive nose a hard time yet the heat is unbearable for her. In the end, I had to manually turn her to her side and wipe her sweat off while she slept.

Although tough, it was better than the days when Sophie wanted to be held even after she fell asleep. I spent more than a month sleeping in the sitting position with her in my arms. After that, I tried to lower her onto our bed in the middle of the night. Not always successful but it was a relief for me. I remembered excruciating back pain during that period that kept me awake in the night. It was her so-called "colic" that made her super cranky and "needy" in the night. Actually, it was cow's milk allergy that gave her loose stools and wind. Once we replaced that with soy milk, her condition "improved".

The truth is, soy milk gave her hard stools instead. From one extreme, she swung to the other end of the spectrum. In the middle of the night, she would curl up her legs and slammed them down while moaning and groaning with her hands by the side of her head. It usually started at around 3 am and lasted a couple of hours. I had to rub her tummy to ease her discomfort in the middle of the night. Poor Sophie hardly have any sleep! Out of sheer heartache, I was willing to forgo all expert advice about independence and sleeping routine, and help her sleep better... whatever it took.

Then it was her asthmatic cough. She could not sleep throughout the night as she coughed and struggled to breathe through her stuffy nose. I put her next to me so that when she coughed, I could pat her back and do physiotherapy for her. It helped in preventing the phlegm from entering the lungs and causing infection while making it easier for her to cough it out.

Thank God those nights were over. Nowadays, she sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night to crawl around. We suspect she may be sleepwalking or shall I say, "sleepcrawling". We have to be alert because she may lose her balance, fall and hit her head, even if she is in her cot bed. I am almost terrified by the thought of her climbing off our bed and walking out of our room in the middle of the night. Guess it is part and parcel of her growing up... to date, I have not had a decent night's sleep since March 2007...and still counting...