Paranoia, Paranoia

Before the drama with Charlotte and Booty Boil 2010, we had simple lives. Charlotte would be put to bed at 6:00–7:00 p.m., and she’d play with her feet and make strange trills with her voice until dozing off . . . to sleep 11, 12, or 13 hours. Straight. Rarely—although it did occur—she’d wake up with a couple short cries. Ever the steady, cry-it-out parents, Chris and I would pause by the baby monitor, and in less than 30 seconds our darling daughter was happily sleeping again--without any intervention from us. The came the icky nights of the stomach virus, followed by the horror of The Hospital. I don’t use the term “horror” lightly or for dramatic effect. For our little hum-drum, simple-life family, getting unexpectedly thrust into the hospital like we did was horrifying. But as you know, Charlotte was eventually fine and we’re now back to our normal, everyday lives. Except for the paranoia. Charlotte is not going down to sleep as easily as Before. We steel ourselves to endure a long period of time of letting her cry it out—and she’ll let out one of those desperate shrieks within her crying that doesn’t just sound heart-wrenchingly awful, but also brings terrible flashbacks of the hospital stuff. It’s not just me. As we sat in the dining room a floor beneath the nursery, eating enchiladas that started to taste increasingly like sand while Charlotte continued to cry, Chris and I stared nervously at each other. Then she let out several terrible wails, and Chris grimaced. “That’s what she sounded like in the hospital,” he said softly. “I know,” I said, thinking the same thing and picturing her terrified face during the many procedures. “But she’s just mad. She’s annoyed that she’s in her crib, not down here playing with us.” “Yeah,” he said. Then, after a moment, “But what if something is wrong?” My mind was already there. A giant abscess causing her pain. A fever. A tummy ache. A bad reaction to the antibiotics. Maybe she wasn’t better after all. Crying, after all, is the only way Charlotte can tell us if something is wrong. It’s a lot harder to tough out cry-it-out spells when your kid has been really sick, I realized. So we went upstairs. I picked Charlotte up out of her crib, and sat in the rocking chair. She immediately stopped crying began to bounce in my lap, smiling. “You little twerp,” I muttered, as exhausted, she laid her head on my shoulder and promptly fell asleep. Well, hell, she was already asleep and quiet, so what harm could there really be in rocking her for a bit? So I rocked, indulging in the cuddly coziness that only a sleeping baby in your arms can provide. Then gently, gently, I placed her back in the crib. She awoke. And screamed. I rolled my eyes and returned downstairs. Chris had a concerned look on his face. “She’s still crying!” he said. “Is she okay?” She was fine. And eventually, after a long, long time, she fell asleep. The nights since then have been a variation on the same theme. She cries and cries and cries when being put down, or she wakes up crying in the middle of the night. Cognitively, I know that proper sleep training (as it pertains to Charlotte—I know, I know, cry-it-out isn’t for everyone) requires me to back off and let Charlotte soothe herself back to sleep. But I get so worried that something is seriously wrong, I’ll let her cry for about 30 seconds and if it continues, I make a beeline for the nursery, check her diaper, and take her temperature. (To help, Chris just bought an infrared thermometer so we can scan her forehead from afar and see if she’s sick without her even waking up. See? Paranoid.) And my, that kid is just pleased as punch to see me. When she gets bored, she knows exactly how to get her mama out of bed. Clever girl. Clearly, we’re veering into the land of the tail wagging the dog. In fairness to Charlotte (and us!), she’s still a little psychologically on edge. She’s not as clingy as she was a week ago, but she still scares more easily than Before. We’ve reinstituted the nightlight, which may help. But I think it’s just going to take a long period of time in which she’s not woken up from a dead sleep to have an IV stuck in her arm or a rectal temperature taken or whatever. She needs to feel safe. I took Charlotte to her pediatrician (whom we know quite well now) for her 9-month check-up. “How paranoid do I need to be?” I asked him. “Is it more important to stay on the lookout for signs that this thing has returned, or to re-establish her sleep-training?” “Sleep-training,” he said without hesitation. “Then, if something is wrong, you know it because it will so unusual for Charlotte to wake up in the middle of the night. Besides, if she isn’t feeling well, she won’t be herself the next morning.” So Chris and I are putting on our game faces for that most tricky element of parenting young children—consistency. Problem is, consistency still requires you to use instinct and decent judgment. In the past week, after a couple nights of crying when we put her down, Charlotte has returned to her usual sleeping self--she plays and talks to herself in her crib for awhile (without any crying) and eventually falls asleep. Her being able to independently soothe herself to sleep is a crucial element of her sleep, I've found. She is also doing increasingly better with sleeping through the night. We had one relapse last week where she was simply inconsolable until Chris cracked and gave her a bottle. Last night she let out a cry but immediately went back to sleep. So we're getting there, I think--in spite of being less consistent than I'd like. This whole post-hospital thing is just unnerving. The pediatrician says that what we need is for time to create some distance between the hoopla and now. So far, that seems to be true. The thing is, every time I worried about something related to my baby, in the back of my mind I thought, “It’s not that bad. It’s just a virus/cold/scratch/bruise/diaper rash. I’m overreacting.” Then, come to find out, I wasn't overreacting at all, something WAS terribly wrong with my baby, and I had probably been UNDERREACTING this whole time. So really, how good of a mother am I? All I’m saying is that all those competing thoughts, images, experiences, and worries make it mighty hard to stay put when your baby wails for you to come and comfort her.