2023-10-28 07:38:39
Elodie and Lucas have been talking about it for several days. The question is still to know “Are we going backwards? We are going forward ? Will he wake up earlier? Later ?” Finally the Marseillais couple came to an agreement: “It’s worth it”. Not really afraid of this change to face, one more, for these parents in their thirties who welcomed their second child ten days earlier. “We hope and believe, naively, that it will go well all the same!”
They have watched some videos of advice and tips to support their eldest son but after the nights that the couple has experienced since his birth, come what may! “He is two and a half years old. For two years, he woke up every three hours…” With the added bonus of a sometimes complicated start to the evening: “Going to bed could be so long and difficult.”
At Pauline and Matthieu’s, in Nice, the time change doesn’t generate too much apprehension either. “I don’t know at all what is advisable to do or not to do at this point.”, admits Pauline. Yet very informed, the young mother has no illusions about the quality of her nights to come.
“Relapses are common”
For this couple, parents of two children aged 3 and 1, the bad nights started 6 months ago. “Our second child slept through the night until he was around 6 months old. There, he just celebrated his first birthday and… I sleep badly every night.” A small mattress is installed in her second son’s room, she ends the nights there so she can sleep despite everything without losing hope or good humor.
At Béatrice, in Marseille, as at Margot, in Paris, the time is as much for optimism as for resignation. Both of them are familiar with broken nights. “It’s the holidays, it’s already quite late, we’ll see at the moment”, explains the thirty-year-old from Marseille. The three-year-old girl woke up several times a night until she was two years and four months old. Since then, things have been better.”but relapses are frequent”.
For Margot, victory is fresh. Their little girl, one year and one month old, has been sleeping through the night for twenty days. It’s precise. Yes, because every night of sleep counts when you have been deprived of it. “As an infant, she only slept on us and moved around. Day and night. I have terrible memories of my maternity leave, too hard not to be able to take a break, to have to bounce on the spot even in the toilet.”
For the time change, “She and we will manage. We are in an optimistic phase, completely exhilarated by our recent successes!”, laughs the young mother. Until three months ago, the little girl woke up her parents 6 to 12 times a night.
Are the nights bad? Too bad. These parents, forced insomniacs, know how to demonstrate self-sacrifice and endurance in the face of this wall that the nights of a child’s first years can represent. “40% of children under three years old experience sleep disorders”, assures Doctor Daniela Pennaroli, neuro-pediatrician specializing in sleep disorders in Marseille.
Knowing that you are not alone is important, that the child will grow up and that he will sleep straight through, barring illness, is reassuring. But once this observation is made, what should we do? “A child who sleeps poorly can change the entire family dynamic. This has repercussions on the couple too. Very often, one of the two parents wants to break the cycle of bad nights, this leads to a confrontation. I’ve seen a few couples break up due to sleep in my career”, explains the specialist.
“My guy broke down”
Without going to this extreme, Pauline notes many of the consequences of this restless sleep, particularly on the couple’s sexual and emotional life. “I can’t count how many times we were interrupted because our second son woke up and needed me to go back to sleep.” At Margot’s, it was the couple who almost got hurt. ”My boyfriend broke down, he told me that if we didn’t resolve the problem quickly, we would go see a marriage counselor. It wasn’t our relationship that had a problem but it was the only solution he considered.”
Elodie, for her part, saw consequences at the professional and social level linked to lack of sleep, in particular “difficulty concentrating, some irritability”less frequent and shorter evenings outside. “But we stuck together, we knew it was temporary. We had no idea, however, that it would be so long.”
A child who “doesn’t sleep through the night” therefore seems to be a fairly common difficulty. Frequent certainly but to which we provide few or no solutions. The four couples who have gone through or are still going through sleepless nights have not found attentive ears among the pediatricians who follow their children.
“You have to be patient” said Elodie and Lucas’ pediatrician when their son woke up every three hours until he was two years old. “I clearly felt in his response that sleep was not his hobby, his domain or that he did not have a precise solution to give me.”
“Putting our daughter into bed was a real struggle, remembers Margot, completely minimized by the pediatrician who was only interested in the number of bottles taken at night.” Reactions which do not surprise Daniela Pennaroli who recalls that in pediatrics, students only have a short module on children’s sleep during their training.
“Pediatricians do not necessarily have the knowledge to help parents unless they have followed specific training on the subject. Some people avoid talking about it even though it is one of the subjects that worries parents the most. And social security has not set up a specific rating to bill for sleep consultations.” When Daniela Pennaroli sees parents, the first consultation lasts an hour. “It’s long because I scan the child’s entire life, the context in which he grows up, his habits and all the members of his family.”
“We rowed and rowed”
It is hard to imagine a pediatrician who must administer a mandatory vaccination and ensure the child’s proper development, growth, nutrition, and psychomotor progress, being able to take this time to understand the blockages that prevent peaceful nights. However, it would be a solution. “There are no more than two or three specialists in Paca on the subject of children’s sleep and one of the doctors is retiring in a few months. However, 60% of sleep disorders can be resolved in consultation. If this were the case, this would allow children who have real pathologies such as narcolepsy or sleep apnea to be taken care of more quickly.”, deplores the specialist.
Faced with the lack of response from the pediatrician, Margot remembers going to look for information elsewhere. “We rowed and rowed, I wrote to everyone I knew with children to try everything, I followed dozens of Instagram accounts dedicated to children’s sleep, listened to dozens of podcasts.” Salvation will come from a specialist child psychiatrist near her home and a one and a half hour session which will provide solutions without being miraculous. “It reassured me that this woman was not “just” a sleep consultant like the ones I followed on Instagram”.
This is one of the solutions available to exhausted parents: coaching. A solution that Doctor Daniela Pennaroli does not necessarily view negatively. “This is a good possibility, especially if it is done by a psychologist, a hypnotherapist or another professional who is not necessarily a doctor.” But it is a solution that can be expensive. “It’s true that this can sort parents out, in a certain way”. Unfamiliar with the content of these training courses, the specialist calls for caution “the line can be very fine between something that helps the child and something lucrative that will take advantage of the parents’ distress”says the specialist.
Reassure parents to get children to sleep
Distress and shame too. The gaze of others weighs heavily on the shoulders of parents whose children do not sleep through the night. “Some parents do not dare to talk about it in consultation with their pediatrician”confirms Doctor Cristina Iulia Ioan, pediatrician specializing in children’s sleep at Nancy hospital. “When they come to see us, they don’t necessarily dare to say that they have done sleep coaching either.” The gaze of loved ones can also be heavy. Elodie and Lucas remember those around them asking them over and over again “so the nights are okay?” It haunted us night and day.”
“Once pathologies are ruled out, many of our consultations consist in part of reassuring parents that they are capable and that their children will sleep and go back to sleep on their own without having to leave them crying for two hours. Results are not seen overnight but if parents have confidence, children gain confidence too.”
Pauline and Matthieu decided to be patient, “I can still put things into perspective, tell myself that it will pass. I often say to myself ‘one day at a time’. Last night he woke up more than three times. I left my room after 11 p.m. and this morning, I’m tired but I’m trying not to focus on it. I am still full of hope for the night that follows”.
And if we still needed to be reassured, Dr. Pennaroli has also been there. “I have two children, they are grown up now but I haven’t slept for four years”, she assures. It remains to be seen who takes care of parents’ troubled sleep? “To my knowledge, no one”confides, a little surprised, Doctor Cristina Iulia Ioan.
1698490208
#Time #change #toddlers #waking #night #ordinary #nightmare