THE BABY, who is almost nine weeks old, was sleeping in his little chair next to me—settled in for a nice nap, sleeping deeply and peacefully after requiring my attention for a while (i.e., I was relieved he was finally asleep in his chair)—when he woke briefly, fussed, squirmed a bit, loudly filled his diaper, then went right back to sleep.
What terrible timing! I was now faced with the dilemma: Do I let him sleep in his poop, or do I change his diaper and risk waking him? It’s a tough question! Being that he’s still so young, I changed his diaper, knowing that it’s not too difficult to rock him back to sleep; when I’ve faced this with older children—especially those who don’t easily go down for their naps or bedtimes—it’s not as easily answered!
You may have always heard, as I have, “Never wake a sleeping baby,” but I actually follow a different rule: “Never wake a sleeping baby during naptime or nighttime unless the baby needs to be woken.” I’ve woken many a sleeping baby during my motherhood, often in order to keep them on schedule (yes, you can disagree with sticking to a schedule for a baby—and many do—but when you’re the one who’s up in the night, every night, for months and months with the baby, and you know letting him sleep for his nap even a half hour longer will interfere with his tenuous relationship with nighttime sleep, and therefore threaten your fragile hold on sanity, you are the only one who is allowed to make that decision). I’ve also woken my babies while breastfeeding to relieve engorgement, giving nebulizer treatments for asthma, and putting them in the car for trips. Most of the time my intention is *not* to have them actually wake up (sometimes they continue to sleep while I do what I need to do, which is amazing), but waking does happen, and when it does it’s a risk I’d already calculated and decided was worth it.
There are also the non-nap times of the day—times when I don’t mind the baby sleeping if he wants to, but I don’t mind him waking up either—like when we’re out visiting friends or family, or running errands, or picking the other boys up from school, or attending a sporting event, or at church. In my mind, not being able to have a solid, restful nap during this time helps the baby to settle into a daily rhythm or schedule that fits with the needs of the rest of the family. (On the flip side, I try very hard to respect naptime and nighttime and not make plans that interfere unless necessary. Admittedly, this has been much harder with this baby, since we have so much going on—this is a topic for another time.)
Even though I’m okay with waking a baby when I decide it needs to be done or the risk is worthwhile, if you are not me and you wake my sleeping baby—oh man. Hell hath no fury like this mother whose baby has been woken up without her permission.
The biggest offenders I have to deal with are my other children, who have been refusing to go along with the “Don’t wake the baby!” rule, as they don’t think waking a baby is that big a deal. This is likely because they see that if the baby wakes up, I drop everything and tend to the baby until he falls asleep again, and so waking the baby becomes, in their minds, part of the same category as a myriad of other duties of home and family: something Mom takes care of, so no one else feels like they need to.
This is an incorrect mindset. Waking the baby is a big deal. It’s a very big deal. I’ve lost my temper more times than I can count because of the boys waking the baby. They clomp around the house with their huge feet and noisy shoes; they yell and whoop and holler while playing and fighting and watching football; they slam doors. My four-year-old has recently taken to building things out of Legos, and then dropping them on the wood floor so they crash and explode. They love to come running over to me when I’m holding the sleeping baby and say in their loud voices, “Is the baby sleeping Mom? Is he asleep? He doesn’t look like he’s asleep! Why are his eyes open if they’re asleep? What do you mean sometimes babies open their eyes when they sleep? Aww! He is so cute Mom! He’s the cutest baby in the whole world!” Beyond noise, they all love to rub the baby’s head or try to wiggle their fingers into the baby’s closed fist or rock his chair when he’s sleeping. Each one of these things makes me feel like I’m losing my mind.
“Be quiet when the baby’s sleeping!” I whisper-yell. “Stop making so much noise! Don’t touch the baby when he’s sleeping! Stop rocking his chair when he’s sleeping! Back up! Give him some space!” And sometimes I don’t whisper-yell—I straight out yell—which then wakes the baby. Oh my goodness.
Fortunately, the baby is a mostly terrific sleeper who is rarely woken up by loud noises. When his big brothers are in his face, cooing about how cute he is and trying to force him to grab onto their fingers, his response has more and more been to reward them with huge smiles and sweet coos, which absolutely makes their day. Objectively, I’m thrilled that the boys think their baby brother is the best thing ever, and thrilled that the baby is well suited to life in a loud family—it’s absolutely what I hoped for. Years from now, I’ll remember these sweet days with happy tears.
Until then, though, if you wake my baby during naptime or nighttime I’ll whisper-yell you right out of my house.
Kate and her husband have seven sons ages 14, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, and 8 weeks. Follow her at www.facebook.com/kmtowne23, or email her at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
